


Wolf Rising

by JD_Riley



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Beta/Alpha, Bounty Hunters, Fem!Alpha/Male!Beta, German Character, Gunshot Wounds, Kidnapping, Knotting, Language Barrier, M/M, Male!Alpha, Male!Omega, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mercenaries, Mpreg, Murder, Omega Verse, Omegaverse, Outdoor Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Underage, Revenge, Smut, Train Robbery, Trauma, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-01-15 01:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Riley/pseuds/JD_Riley
Summary: Alpha Outlaw Vero is tasked with the risky venture of kidnapping for ransom the favorite Omega of a ruthless and loathsome rail baron who's set up his railcar headquarters in the tiny Western town of Cambry deep in mining country. Pitted against two brutal mercenaries and a furious, cold little German Omega who has no intention of being ransomed, Vero may not stand a chance to get the 30,000 dollars he's demanded...of course, when it comes down to it, maybe he'll find out that 30,000 dollars isn't what he really wanted after all.





	1. Chapter 1

Vero lifted his wide-brimmed hat with his thumb and squinted against the whirls of red dust and the brightness of the sun as it reflected off the painted white of the post office across the dirt main street. He’d been in town a few days and the girls at the hotel at least were used to him striding in and out. They saw him bringing game to the butcher and they’d been watching him while he helped a few of the farmhands break one of the mustangs brought into the auction house nearby.

But it wasn’t the girls he was looking at. He wiped at his face with his handkerchief and made certain he was only peering out the corner of his eye when he spied the trussed up little peacock who belonged to Wilhelm Schulze–the rail baron. The boy was probably just shy of twenty and he smelled sweeter than sugared cream, dressed in the finest of feathers and silk at every possible moment and honestly the cleanest damned thing Vero had ever seen out west where everything always seemed to have a thin film of dust and grime all over it.

_Wolfgang Voigt_ was his name and he barely spoke a lick of English. With sly green eyes and a mess of consistently-tousled brown hair, he parted seas of men with a mere pout and a flutter of his lashes. He was gentle and refined and Vero thought he might have had a little bit of a sinister streak in him if he was used to lounging in opulent rail cars and manipulating wealthy Alphas. One had to wonder how many Alphas such an Omega had serviced over the years. Was he a mate or a practiced and well-loved courtesan?

Vero lit a cigarette and watched the little creature move lightly over the grass, careful not to get his boots dirty as he went. If history played out right, the Omega would walk right in front of where Vero stood. He waited, breathing deep as not to allow his heartbeat and his scent to give him away. He counted to himself as the Omega stepped. _One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three._ His steps were quick as if it a dance and it wasn’t long before he had taken that last fateful one right in front of Vero.

“Gotcha!” he grunted as he snatched up the little Omega, struggling with the wriggling mass until he could mount his horse with him, swinging him over his lap on the saddle as a piece of cargo before he gave the “heeyah!” to signal Maelstrom to _move_. The stallion was off at a gallop, nearly running folks down as Vero moved his mask up over his face and made a beeline for the outer reaches of the plains where he could lose the law among the rocky outcroppings. With as much confusion as he’d just caused, it was likely that there would be some after him but not enough to catch him.

It was soon that he realized the local lawmen had lost their way chasing his fast gray dapple and he slowed in a canter to save the Omega from puking…though probably not soon enough. The little one was shrieking and struggling, kicking his legs and making a fine racket.

“Shut your little fool mouth. You’ll be back home to your Alpha in no time. Just as soon as he pays his due for yah.” He let a heavy hand come down and knock the little one on the back of his head. It wasn’t enough to do more than stun him and let him know that Vero meant business. When they were past a small outcrop of rocks and about a day’s ride from the gang’s camp, he pulled the little ransom off the horse and dropped him unceremoniously into the dirt. “We’ll see how snobbish you are after a few days in the wild with me, huh boy?” He dismounted as the Omega scrambled to his feet, backing up until he was flat against the tall rock with his hands out in front of him.

In a heavy accent, the boy begged. “_Pleess. Pleess! Do not hurt! Plees!” _

“I’m not gonna hurt yah, keep your hair on.” With that, he dismounted and pointed at the ground. “Sit your tight little ass on the ground here.”

The boy, probably unable to understand him, moved his eyes frantically between his finger and the ground before he nearly dove into the spot and sat, obediently allowing Vero to tie his wrists together. There was a smudge of something on the boy’s cheek so Vero moved to wipe at it with his thumb, the coarseness of his fingertip causing the boy to wince.

“Ehn,” he sighed. “Ain’t much for outlaws, I suppose. You’ve got your sights right…rich men don’t have calluses on their fingers.” Moving away from him, it took him a few seconds to get out a bit of canned beans from his saddlebags and he ate them cold. “We’ll get you to camp tomorrow and you can have a nice bed to sleep in. For now, you’ll have to make do with my bedroll.” When the boy showed no signs of understanding him, he shrugged. “Now, do I have to gag you, Omega?” He sat down and lifted up a strip of fabric, modeling it on himself as a gag before he pointed at the boy with a question in his eyes.

“_Nein…_” He shook his head. “No…”

“Alright, well enough.” He sat next to the Omega with his back against the rock, pulling out the small bit of instructions Harchem had given him before he’d left, forming the words carefully with his mouth.

_Find Voigt. Take Voigt. Bring Voigt alive for ransom. Treat him well._

Vero had wondered several times if the last line was meant to tell Vero not to fuck the the little one on his way back to camp. There were a few of the men in the gang who would have faced no difficulty in taking exactly what they thought they deserved from a sweet little boy like this one–especially one who couldn’t tell them off in any way that mattered to them. Still…it was easy to tell what “no” was in German and Vero didn’t have the strength to put an Omega through some kinds of horror.

“Alpha?”

He looked up, folding the scrap of paper and tucking it back into his pocket. Those brilliant green eyes were sparkling with the emotions that were saturating his scent. Fear but also…hope? He’s smelled that enough in his life to recognize it and this disturbed him. “Omega?”

He leaned forward, his eyes and voice pleading. “Help. Help me?”

Vero tilted his head, quirking his brow. “What do you mean? What do you mean ‘help’?”

“Help,” he repeated, his expression desperate. “Help.” He thought, his eyes flicking back and forth as if searching for a word. “_Du sollst mich behalten. Keep. Keep!_”

“I don't know what you mean to ask me, son, but you don't want me to keep you.” He waved a hand at the little one where he sat to dismiss the whole premise and pulled his journal out of his saddlebags, settling himself down against one of the rocks and opening up to a free page. He'd never been so close to such a pretty Omega and damned if he wasn't gonna take a shot at replicating that finely crafted face on paper. Sharpening his short drawing pencil with his hunting knife, he set about sketching out the basics of the Omega's form before the boy became overly curious and moved.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Vero barked, motioning for him to sit again. “I'm tryin' ta get yah down on paper, alright? Now sit there an' don't yah move!”

The German clearly didn't understand him. He leaned forward again, frowning.

“Stop it, you little tick!” Putting down his journal, he shifted forward to put his hands on the boy's upper arms, shifting him until he was back in his original position. Then he put a finger out as a signal for him to stay. “Stay!” he ordered.

The Omega pointed at his chest, awkward with his hands tied in front of him. “Wolf.”

“Yeah, Wolfgang, I know,” Vero grumbled. “Stay there. Don't move.”

“Don't move,” he parroted softly.

“Yeah.”

“_Ja._”

The basic shape and outline was easy but Vero studied him hard for his more delicate features, finding that the combination of femininity and masculinity within a male Omega was far more difficult to grasp and convey than the other dynamics he'd chosen to sketch before. It was rare, after all, to find a male Omega—or any Omega at all—far out to the west. It was no surprise then that Schulze, the rail baron, was in the habit of taking one everywhere he went. Along with that, it was also no surprise that he should take with him one who hailed from his mother country. Intensely beautiful, Voigt was the subject of many a man's prurient dreams and they didn't mind rambling on about how much they'd like to rip him clear out of Schulze's cold, dead hands to fuck him through his heats and hear the sweet sounds of his exotic begging.

Vero didn't find Voigt's language exotic. He didn't find it anything but odd and disjointed and honestly bizarre upon the ears. Though the boy was handsome, it was all he had for Vero. That and the potential to net him an obscene amount of money. It had been Harchem's idea to take the boy but he trusted Vero—that's why he'd sent him alone. That or he absolutely thought Vero a waste of breath, the Alpha thought glumly, recalling the amount of times he'd stumbled over his own words and sometimes his own feet to make a fool of himself in front of the boss. Maybe it was just Harchem's way of giving him a fool's errand to get rid of him. Maybe it was that...but then maybe this was his chance. This was how Vero was going to prove himself.

He finished the boy's hair and the gentle curve of his nose but kept having to recreate his eyes, unsatisfied with the way they opened wide in a very Omega-like fashion to create a doe-eyed appearance. He almost appeared _innocent_ which, of course, was some kind of ruse. An instinctual _Omega_ ruse meant to force Alphas into protecting them when by all rights they needed no such protection at all. This particular boy was likely one of those. He didn't _look_ like he could manipulate a man but Vero knew there was more behind those wide green eyes. The boy was sly. No doubt.

When he was finally satisfied that he'd gotten his eyes just right—with a hint of a malicious glitter behind them—he moved on and then paused, his pencil poised just over the gentle slope of his throat. His eyes darted upward and his lips were tight together.

“No bondmark?” he blurted, shifting suddenly and causing the boy to jerk in surprise. “Hey, hey,” he cooed, putting out his hands to show he meant no harm. Reaching out, he took the boy's chin and turned him one way and then the other, his pale white throat unmarred. With a soft set of movements, he shifted the boy's shirt so that he might reveal more of that perfect, supple skin and could find no evidence at all that the boy was anyone's mate. Despite the Alpha scent that hung over him—Schulze's earth and fire tones, through and through—he held no mark that he was taken. “No bondmark...” he mumbled to himself.

“Keep,” Wolf said to him blankly, staring into his eyes. He pointed at the Alpha with both his hands and then motioned to himself again. “Keep. Alpha keep.”

“No, no, no...that's not how this works.”

“Keep.”

“No.”

“Ja.”

He cracked a smile then, unable to keep from grinning. “Yer a sassy little shit, aren't yah?” He pulled out another cigarette and lit it, comparing the sketch he'd done to the real thing. He'd have to take a bit more time to practice, he thought. His eyes still weren't quite right. Especially not when the boy was brimming with consternation like he was now, pouting and unable to understand why the hell Vero wasn't sinking his teeth into him right this moment.

“Alpha. _Ich will, dass du mich beißt._” He pulled his lips back from his teeth and made a chomping motion.

“Yah I know. You want me to keep you. But you're not for keepin'. Why the hell you'd ever want a man like me to bite yah, I'll never know. Ya'll must have lost your damned mind. Got scrambled up on the horse, huh?”

The boy turned his head away, grumbling to himself. “Hmmph. _Du blöder Mistkerl._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little shorter, but it took blood, sweat, and tears. For some reason, all my westerns are written when I'm depressed. I don't speak German. So if there's a better way for Wolf to say something, be sure to let me know. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

Wilhelm Schulze was a distasteful man and short for an Alpha. He had a trimmed beard and squinting, beady eyes that darted around a room as though he expected everyone around him to pick his pockets. Broad-shouldered, at the very least, he appeared to be strong despite his stature and he walked with his back straight and a scowl planted firmly upon his brow. This evening, he was pacing around in his luxury rail car that sat upon the auxiliary track in the small town of Camry which lay in a valley of forest just removed from a vast amount of open range.

“I suppose,” he started in a heavily-accented and gritty tone, “that you have questions about why I have called you here.”

Izz gave a slow and purposeful glance toward her partner, Jack who was eying up the bourbon on the side table. She hooked her thumbs on her gun belt and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. She didn’t really think they should have had the luxury of time for all these theatrics but the man had to impress upon her that he was rich—that was how he got things done for him, of course. He needn’t have bothered. She could tell the man was loaded but it was really these types—these “business men” types—that held onto their funds tighter than a snare and were keen to make certain that there were ways to get out of paying for a job neatly done.

Jack didn’t seem concerned, inching his way over to the bourbon which looked to be of a fine quality while she spoke.

“I think we do have a few queries, Mr. Schulze. How is it that such a prized Omega found his way into the hands of Harchem’s men?”

“They are slippery devils. The man who’s done it…he seemed only a run-of-the-mill transient in Camry. He helped break some mustangs, he moved some lumber and hauled some grains. Odd jobs. He was observing my Wolf’s every move. I see you already know why you were summoned.”

“Croesus doesn’t lose his favored harem boy without every hunter hearing of it,” Izz muttered half to herself, flicking her eyes at Jack.

He’d made it to the side cupboard and the bourbon and Izz only glanced his way every so often, admiring the way he could almost make himself invisible to those who didn’t care to look specifically for him. A Beta trait, she thought blandly though she would have to admonish him later for his flagrant use of it for such things as fine bourbon. He didn’t even tink the thick glass of the decanter against the tumbler, returning to her side while sipping it without meeting her gaze.

Schulze wasn’t paying attention enough to spot the indiscretion. “He is beautiful. Have you seen him?”

“No. If you’ve a sketch of him, it would help.”

Schulze pointed to the wall of the rail car, a towering portrait painted in oils hanging upon the wall and reaching nearly from ceiling to floor. Wicked green eyes peered out from a distinguished youthful face—almost as though Wolf were half-man, half-child with the better parts of both. His hair was a reddish brown and he was lithe in the manner that most Alphas liked their Omegas—uselessly so. He was beautiful enough that it was likely he was already defiled. “It is all I have of him. My pride! He is as enigmatic as the moon, you see. A willful, stubborn boy.”

Izz itched to light a cigarette, averting her eyes from the portrait as there was something in them that disturbed her. Anger? Sadness? What was the emotion that Wolf conveyed from the confines of his picture? She cleared her throat. “You want him back.”

“Alive. Unharmed.”

“I can promise he will see no harm from our hands, but that is all I can promise.”

“_Unharmed!_” he snapped again, puttering about his desk. “You will need funds to use to investigate. Food for your horses. You will stay at some hotels, yes?” He pulled open one of his desk drawers and pulled out several already-written sheets of paper which he signed in great haste in dark black ink. He set them out to dry and looked up at Izz again. “You will not see my money until you bring me my Wolf alive. You will take these. They will direct your vendors to fulfill your demands and collect their payments from my stewards. Should I find that you have demanded more than is necessary, I will deduct those expenses from your pay.”

Izz’s lip twitched with her displeasure. “And what if I don’t agree with whatever you found _reasonable_ in our expenses?”

“Perhaps you are not the woman for the job if you will be questioning your employer’s integrity,” Schulze spat back.

She gritted her teeth and sent a soft glance to Jack who had finished his bourbon and set the glass down on the arm of a nearby chair, his eyes on the expensive rug beneath Schulze’s feet and his bottom lip sucked into his mouth. She couldn’t deny this job. She couldn’t let it go to the wayside. Not when it could pay out big for the both of them. Not when it could give them both freedom.

“Fine, it’s a deal,” she barked. “Unharmed. Gimme the papers.”

The odious Alpha collected them in precise movements and tapped their bottoms on the surface of the desk to neaten them before he handed them to her with a smile, smug smile that Izz immediately hated. This man was going to try to cheat her, she thought savagely, but what else could she do? She and Jack weren’t going to be leaving this job with the ten thousand he promised, that was for sure, but even nine thousand could save their skins out here in the west. Even eight could pull through to do what they needed it to do.

She tucked the papers into the inside pocket of her coat and turned around toward the door, tapping down the metal steps onto the rocks beside the tracks, taking long strides toward she and Jack’s horses who were grazing near the trees they’d been hitched to. The moon was bright and full overhead, casting a grayish silver light over the landscape that glinted off the steel rails.

“Well?” Jack said as he came beside her.

“Well,” she stated. It was a complete thought and Jack knew it by heart—she didn’t like the look of it, but it would have to do. She threw her reins over Marble’s head and climbed into the saddle, waiting until Jack was seated to ask the stallion to walk. They were silent until they’d reached their hotel and after they’d climbed the stairs to their room and shut the door behind them, Izz was not the first to speak.

Jack’s voice was mild and pleasant, sneaking up her spine with warmth. “Do you think it’s a rational use of time? Unharmed. It would likely mean that he couldn’t have been…”

_Raped._ Izz sighed through her nose. “If he was then we just wait until his wounds have healed to bring him back. If he tells the ugly pisser what happened to him out there, we just have to hope he waits until after we’ve been paid.”

“Why do I feel like you’re far more doubtful about this than you usually are?”

Izz began to strip, pulling off her boots as she sat on the edge of the bed. While she removed her clothes, she rolled her eyes. “He’s a rich man, Jack. Rich men don’t get rich by payin’ a man for an honest livin’.”

Jack didn’t argue with her and merely began to take his own clothes off, climbing naked onto the bed and casting her an appreciative glance when she moved to slide her fingers over the soft flesh of his inner thigh. How they’d ever become what they were would always baffle her. How had it started? It had seemed as if she’d known Jack forever but surely they had only been together for a few years as most. He wasn’t small enough to be mistaken for an Omega and it had been clear from the very beginning that what they had together was something only the West could have provided. Seclusion made it easier. He was a Beta…she was an Alpha…what they had could never have been considered right.

“Jack…” she murmured, watching him pull back the covers.

“Hmm?”

She smiled at him, sheepish and still sure that he wouldn’t deny her. “Will you…let me love you tonight?”

His mouth slid into a small smile and he rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks and chin a bit as if mulling it over before he gave out a breathy chuckle. “I reckon I will, Alpha…” Instead of snuggling himself down beneath the covers, he pulled them further down, clearing an area until he was kneeling with his hands resting on the thick headboard, his body positioned much like an Omega who was presenting. With a soft expression over his shoulder, he gave a slight nod of his head to urge her on.

Izz wasted no time shedding all the rest of her clothes, reaching into her pack for the oil they commonly used for this particular purpose. Putting a hand through her hair, she put the bottle to the side for now, deciding what she wanted to do first to him as she studied his position. “Mmm, Beta, you make me sweat when ya do things like this.”

“Do I?” he asked in that same mild, sweet, and low tone that sent familiar warmth through her skin. “What do you think you’re gonna do about it, Belle?”

_Belle._ She shivered with pleasure. He was the only man in the world who could call her Belle. He was the only man in the world who could make her shudder with pleasure at the sound of her name so sweet in his mouth.

Izz grinned. “I’m gonna make you the one who’s sweatin’ by the end o’ this…sweatin’ and beggin’.”

“You think you can make me beg?” he asked, his smug little smirk only a little bit too ingrained on his lips.

“I’ve done it before,” she reminded him, reaching out to his ass so she could run the backs of her fingers over the sensitive skin where it met his thigh. Without waiting for him to retort, she swooped down, pressing her mouth against that very spot and nibbling down toward his bended knee. The sounds of his breath hitching in his throat encouraged her and she nibbled down the other thigh as well, leaving shining trails of her saliva that shimmered in the soft light of the oil lamp. Her big hands came to his waist and she petted him, running her fingers and palms over his sides and his hips and even around to his belly, playing with the hair that trailed from his bellybutton down to where it thickened to nestle his swelled manhood. She smiled. “Oh, have I got you excited already?”

“One look at you and I’m excited,” he told her, his voice far too composed for her liking.

“Ye’re clearly not excited enough if you can talk to me like ye’re talkin’ to any ol’ mister.”

Jack laughed. “Well do yer job then, Belle.” His eyes flashed with mischief. “Why don’t you get me real _wet_ for ya?”

Izz felt her mouth fill with saliva and she licked her lips, taking care not to drool. Oh he was handsome when he said things like this. He taunted her often and in that deep, masculine voice that she dearly loved to hear. Especially when he was above her, between her legs, deep inside her. She blinked and shook her head, diving down to press the wet flat of her tongue against the rim of him. He let out an appreciative breath and his knuckles turned white as she teased him and tasted him until drippings were sliding down his sack and tapping over the sheets.

“_Aw Belle, you know me so well…_”

She put some oil into her palm and reached between his legs, sliding her slippery grip over his rigid length until he was leaning back against her mouth and sighing with every breath. Jack loved her touch almost as much as he loved her mouth though nothing was quite like pressing inside her tight opening, he always said. She let go of him to reach down between her own legs, palming her shaft and rubbing herself until she was as hard as she could get, slick with oil and ready to tear him apart with her girth. Izz backed up a few inches and spat on him. “You gonna beg for me, love?”

He looked over his shoulder, his back arched and his ass wanting. “I ain’t got no pride, Alpha. I’ll beg if I have to.”

“Aah,” she grinned, “I won’ make ya.” She tossed him a little wink before she got up on her knees and put her hands on his hips to position him just right. He’d taken her so many times before that sliding into him was a bit like coming home she thought not without a little humor. He took her entire length, something that had taken the two of them much practice over the years and the way he bit his lip when she was in to the hilt was enough to make her clutch at the base of herself to keep from spending. “_Mmm…tell me what you like, Jack._”

“_Uhnn…I like…I like my girl,_” he moaned back to her, gripping the headboard hard as the springs squeaked beneath them and the wood groaned in protest. “_I like it when she moves…_”

Izz held him by his waist, coaxing him to move with her as she worked inside him, thrusting in a steady rhythm that made quiet creaks in the springs and low groans emit from his throat. After a bit of time just like that, she slid her fingers over his belly and took his still-slippery length in her hand to stroke him, pleased at how hard he was and the way he hissed in a breath at her touch.

With kissing, nipping brushes of her lips and teeth over his back, shoulders, and neck, she whispered sweet nothings into his ears while she pleasured him, the tight sheath of his body around her driving her near to distraction but never enough to deny him his finish. She brought him to the brink several times, worshiping that little whine in the back of his throat when he was so close and yet she held him back. When she was satisfied at the sheen of sweat that had formed over his sun-bronzed skin, she finally nibbled the shell of his ear and pounded into him hard until his body gave sharp spasms around her and thick white jets of his come sprayed the dark walnut headboard. His pleasure, of course, spurred her own peak and she kept herself deep within him to fill him, smug as she always was to see dribbles of her spend leak down the back of his thigh.

He panted, his forehead down to his hands as he leaned heavily on the wood. “That’s…that’s my girl.”

Izz affectionately came behind him again and kissed the soft spot beneath his ear. She purred softly. “And that’s my boy. Maybe in the morning I’ll want that handsome cock in my mouth.” She saw goosebumps rise over his flesh.

After composing himself, he nestled down under the covers next to her, reaching down to his pack to pull out a well-worn letter from home. He often did this. It was Jack’s latest connection to his home where his younger siblings tended the large farm with his mother.

“Does it still smell like her?” Izz asked softly, pulling the quilt up just under her breasts.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you worry about them, Jack. We’ll get this job done and the money will be more than enough to keep the farm. I promise ya. We’ll take care o’ them.”

With a very quiet sigh through his nose, he brought the paper up to scent it again before he folded it up and stashed it. “I hope you’re right, Belle. I don’t know how much longer they can keep on with the wolf at the door…

Izz pulled him close for a tight squeeze, making certain to hold him until his mild scent had evened out from anxious spikes and his breaths had deepened into sleep. She couldn’t afford to be wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Yep. There's extra fuckin' in this one. Who doesn't like that FemAlpha/MaleBeta antagonist fuckery?


	3. Chapter 3

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when Vero woke to find the Omega snuggled hard over his chest, soaking in the warmth of his body and snoring lightly. He sighed, allowing it at least for now. There was no harm in it, after all. He was young and naïve, his worldly dealings sadly strangled by how sheltered he had been from the tight grip of the baron. He knew no hardship and had likely never felt hunger.

Vero watched him sleep, taking in the slightest of smudge marks on his face and the swept unkempt nature of his reddish brown hair. As soon as his eyes opened and the stunning deep emeralds focused upon the Alpha, he would be lost to a terrible fantasy that had overtaken his dreams. Still, he peered down at the way his black lashes fanned over his cheeks and the incredible beauty and innocence of his sleep.

_What if I didn’t return him? What if I collected the ransom but kept him somehow? What if I did what he wants me to do?_

That was ridiculous, of course. It was perhaps a fool’s errand to go through with the kidnapping at the first but it was even more so to consider the possibility of reneging on a deal with Schulze to return him.

The boy stirred, rubbing his cheek against Vero’s chest before his lashes fluttered and those wicked eyes leveled upon him. “_Mmm…_” he groaned, rubbing at his face with his hand to dispel the leftovers of his sleep. “_Alpha…_”

“Oh don’t you go lookin’ at me like that,” he grunted, shifting to deposit the boy beside him. The morning was a small bit chilly and Wolf was in nothing but his light shirt and trousers, his pale flesh covered in goosebumps as he lost the warmth of Vero’s body. “It’ll warm up soon, Omega. You don’t have to be hangin’ all over me. I s'pose that baron o’ yours is out to get me. I’ll have to keep the heat off us for a little bit but I’ve got friends in some places that might let us stay before we take ya to camp. A safe house…of a kind. Understand?” It wasn’t really a house. There was a wily outlaw by the name of Scrubb who owed Vero a bit of a favor and was holed up in an abandoned mine a ways north into the side of the mountains. There was good fishing and good hunting in those parts and it was relatively far from civilization. “We just gotta make a stop over to post yer ransom. Understand?”

The boy’s brows were furrowed hard and he appeared to have not understood a word of what he’d said.

“I feel like I’m talkin’ to a wall here…” he muttered to himself.

“_Du bist ganz schön blöd, oder?_”

“Whatever you say, boy,” he shrugged, kicking dirt over the ashes of the fire and beginning to pack up the camp. He didn’t know how in the world he ever thought even for a second that this was going to be easy. Taking him was effortless but it was almost certain that Schulze was going to send mercenaries after him. Was holing up with Scrubb going to be enough? Did he think that perhaps Wolf was going to remain completely unharmed through everything? His Alpha protectiveness was beginning to rear its ugly head as he stared at the unbelievably beautiful German and knew in his heart that should he be forced to consider his goal or Wolf’s life—his goal would be a strong second.

The Omega stood, watching him at his task before he turned and looked out over the expanse of the plains from their rocky hideout. Dew glittered over the landscape as long shadows of low bushes were cast in the orange light of the rising sun. Wolf appeared almost as if a spirit and Vero could imagine him translucent in the sun, an ethereal guide to another plane dressed scandalously with a bare throat and a cloying scent.

The outlaw realized he was staring when the boy turned his wicked gaze upon him and raised one sardonic brow.

“_Du willst mich beißen. Du willst mich behalten. Ich weiß es._” He strode toward Vero, putting his small cold hand against his chest, pressing so that his palm was over the steady thud of his heart. “_Ich kann ganz süß für dich sein, Alpha._”

The sound of “Alpha” spilling from the boy’s lips caused a distinct shift in Vero’s soul. It was only too obvious in his scent, he knew. “Now don’t you go and start this, boy,” he grumbled, grabbing at Wolf’s wrist and tossing his hand away from himself.

Wolf was frowning again. “_Keep!_”

“No,” he grunted as his reply.

“_Ja._”

“If ya can’t keep yer mouth shut, I’ll keep it shut for ya,” he ground out, turning suddenly to grab the little one as he squealed in surprise. Wolf fought him only a little before he found that he was to be placed in the saddle and then went willingly enough, tucked against Vero’s front and between his thighs with his hands on the saddle’s horn. “Now shut up,” Vero told him solidly, steering Maelstrom into a level trot toward the north. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get where we’re goin’ before nightfall. And maybe you’ll get some supper tonight too…but only if you shut the hell up.”

Wolf, it seemed, must have heard something in the tone of the Alpha’s voice for he did quiet himself down, his scent irritated though for the most part placid. He was fiery and perceptive, his head moving this way and that as his eyes tracked every animal he saw. His ability to immediately pick up upon every movement was intriguing and suggested perhaps that the boy had a peculiar nature. He was pensive and thoughtful and incredibly precise in every movement down to the the slightest touch of his fingertips as he studied the patterned design of the saddle’s horn. Intelligence bled from him, evident in his studious investigation of everything around him and Vero wondered if he was memorizing landmarks…perhaps to tell the lawmen where he had been taken after having been caught.

Vero’s curiosity got the better of him and he sought to alleviate his boredom after a few hours of riding by harassing the little one. The first order of business, of course, was to bring his hand over the Omega’s eyes.

“Hmmph…” the Omega breathed, his nose twitching in disappointment. He did not move to remove the hand. Vero leaned forward to peer around at Wolf’s face as he lifted his hand so that he could look at the boy’s eyes. Finding them questioning and filled with his scent’s annoyance, he covered them again, playing a crude and silly game of peek-a-boo better befitting a child rather than a seasoned outlaw. Finally, after three times of this, the boy reached up and grasped at Vero’s hand, giving him a puzzled expression, his mouth quirked as though he wasn’t certain if he should smile. At Vero’s grin and easy chuckle, he allowed for just one side of his mouth to rise, his scent still befuddled.

It was probably only that he had never encountered an Alpha who was so completely comfortable in himself as to be childish—Vero had to admit, it was a little odd of him. He didn’t mind being juvenile and he saw nothing wrong with being playful or creative…perhaps this was one of the reasons he was more outlaw than anything else. He squeezed the boy with his thighs for a second, laughing at how the little one frowned over his shoulder.

“Ye’re too serious, Omega,” he rumbled jovially. “Don’t you ever smile?” He smiled for the little one, a big toothy grin. Wolf remained frowning at him, his voice soft with just the slightest amount of contempt.

“_Schwachkopf._”

“Well…I guess not then, huh? Ye’re cute but I gotta tell ya, boy. You ain’t cute enough to look past that shit personality.”

They rode on in silence for the better part of the day until Vero couldn’t ignore the rumbling in his stomach any longer. With a casual dismount, he helped the Omega down along a line of trees that opened into a large field of wildflowers which sloped up into a rolling set of green hills. A few deer were grazing in the field and had paid them no mind as they went. He pulled out his rifle and counted the deer. There were plenty of them and with a glance down at the Omega he thought to himself that there would be more later on as well.

He caught the boy’s attention and brought him to kneel in the grass with him, loading up the rounds before he pointed to the deer and then motioned to the rifle. “See this here?” Vero asked, pointing to the sights. “This here is what you wanna line up with your target. Right here, this notch right there. He pointed specifically to the small area and then out toward the deer on the hillside again. The rifle seemed like it was almost too large for the small Omega and unwieldy, but once Vero had gotten his hold right on it and he knew it wasn’t gonna fly out of his hands with the recoil, he felt like it was safe enough for him to shoot. Yeah, it was gonna rock him backward a little bit and sure, it was gonna make his shoulder a little sore, but if it taught the little one how to shoot and it got them some supper for the night, Vero didn’t think it was a bad trade.

The little one took a small while, adjusting himself several times as his serious expression deepened. His teeth were tight together behind his lips and his delicate features were pinched a bit with his concentration. “_Ich schieße jetzt?_”

“Whatever you say, buddy,” Vero told him, lighting up another cigarette. He gave a little start when the little one pulled the trigger but looked up with the lit cigarette on his lip to find the deer had flopped over. He smacked the little Omega on the arm. “Hey, hey, great work!” He got up, running toward the downed game while the Omega ran behind him with the rifle in his hand. Of course, when he got there the deer was struggling, kicking and braying as it bled from the bullet wound in its neck. “Ah, not a clean kill…” he lamented, but before he could do a thing, the rifle was thrust into his hands and the little German had pulled Vero’s hunting knife from its sheath on his thigh. “Hey, hang on…”

The little one did not hang on, ending the creature’s misery without a single moment’s hesitation.

“Jesus Christ, Omega…” Vero muttered, taking a drag from his cigarette. “How many deer have you killed in your life?”

“Done,” the little one told him with his heavy German sound, shrugging before he gently slapped his hands against his thighs. “Keep? Keep now?” He motioned to himself and then to Vero, the look in his eyes that of imploring confidence.

“You have no idea what you’re askin’ for,” the Alpha told him, slinging the rifle onto his back before he began tying the deer’s feet together to transport it back to camp. The little one couldn’t possibly know what kind of life Vero was living and what exactly was going to happen when he got him back to camp. He was going to be treated well, no doubt, but he was still a ransom and when the money was paid, he was going to be given back–something he seemed very against at the moment. “When this is all said and done…” he began, taking a good hard look at the Omega standing there in his tight trousers and loose, fancy white shirt, “You uh…hmm…you’re gonna…have to…well you know.” He made a vague motion with his hands. “Ransom,” he said. “You know what that is? Ransom?”

The Omega stared at him. He motioned to the gun and the deer and then back to himself and Vero. “Done. Keep now.”

Vero finished off his cigarette, flicking it into the wet grass of the hillside. “Fuck.”

“Yes,” Wolf said heavily, throwing down Vero’s knife and grasping at the front of his light coat, pulling the Alpha close to him. “Fuck. Yes. Now.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Vero told him, shaking his head and taking his small hands to remove them. His scent was sweet but determined and his eyes were like glittering emeralds, hard and resolute. He looked like a man on the edge of a precipice. “This is not happening. That’s not what I meant.” It figured the boy would know the most base terms for mating and that out of context, they might confuse him. Vero sighed heavily, having to fight the boy to get him a few steps back. “Ransom!” he grunted. “You ain’t no good to me if ya been plowed half to hell!”

“_Fuck!_” the boy shrieked, his anger overflowing into a hard kick to Vero’s shin.

“Ow, Jesus!” He rubbed at his shin as the boy took a few steps back from him, a vision of anger and sweetness in the wildflowers around him. “You know, you’re a right piece o’ shit, aren’t ya? Maybe I _should_ have left ya tied up.” Grumbling a bit more, he stashed his rifle on his saddle and bent over to pluck the knife from the grass. As Wolf warily watched him, he wiped it off and sheathed it, picking up the deer to strap it to the back of his horse. Though it seemed like the boy was trying to keep from being manhandled again, Vero found it easy to capture him despite his impotent yelling against it and he stuck the boy in the saddle again, taking the reins and choosing to walk with the stallion.

“Listen,” Vero told him, knowing full well the boy would never be able to parse out his meaning, “you’re a pretty little thing and all but there’s a lot o’ money that we could get for ransom. Now I know there are gonna be hunters out lookin’ for us so you gotta be a little bit more discreet about this if you don’ want to get hurt. Now…you know, I wouldn’t be the one to hurt ya…” At the mere thought of anyone coming to hurt this Omega, Vero’s blood began to heat. He sighed, looking up at the saucy German who was glowering down at him. “I really don’t wanna have to gag ya.”

He was only a little nervous bringing the boy past the train station but he didn’t want to leave him out of his sight for overly long as he posted his letter. He thought for a minute when he was scribbling down his ransom using the saddle between Wolf’s thigh as his desk and then asked the boy if he might like to add something to the bottom of it. Maybe a word or two. He took the pen and lifted his brow as if asking Vero if this is truly what he was meant to do.

“Four words,” he told the boy, lifting up his fingers to show him. “Only four words.”

The Omega’s lips pursed for a moment before he wrote in finely crafted lettering.

_Herr Po, friss Scheiße._

Vero pulled out his knife and leaned the German down a bit, cleanly slicing off a small lock of his hair to fold up into the parchment. Once it was mailed, he took the reins again and tried to ignore the boy’s heavy, resigned sighs. At this point he for certain knew that ransom was in the cards. Perhaps the boy had been ransomed before.

He gave no more trouble and surprisingly, he and the Omega were able to cross through a narrow passage into the hills that shaved off some of their travel time, the entrance to the old mine a yawning dark portal in the early evening light.

“Who’s there?” came Scrubb’s rasping voice from the interior.

“It’s just me, you ol’ coot,” Vero called back, unsurprised to see the graying old man emerge with a .22 in his hands. “I’ve brought yer dinner for a few days and—”

“And a _boy_,” Scrubb breathed, licking his lips. “A _beautiful_ boy.”

Vero pointed at the man sharply. “You don’t touch ‘im. He’s my ransom. This 'ere’s Wilhelm Schulze’s favorite.”

His bushy gray brows rose and he laughed licentiously. “Oooh, his _favorite._ I can’t imagine why. How much are ye askin’?”

“Thirty thousand.”

The old man whistled, his eyes closed and his hand holding his chest over his heart. “Dear God in heaven what a ransom.”

“And that’s why he’s _off limits_, you understand, Scrubb? I might not even leave 'im here with you, knowin’ how awful you are.” The man was known for preferring them young—likely far younger than the German, who by Vero’s standards was just about on the threshold of manhood. Frankly, the idea disgusted him and by all accounts he was rather glad the grisly outlaw was relegated to living out of a mine. He grumbled again. “Might leave 'im with a cattleman to shoot ya if ya got close.”

“I won’t touch 'im,” he grinned, giving Wolf a predatory look that Vero didn’t like one bit. Fortunately for his nerves Wolf was staring coolly down at the man from the saddle, his eyes and scent giving away that this was certainly not the first time he’d seen a man act a fool in front of him.

He took the deer from Maelstrom’s back and set it down on a large wooden table just inside the mouth of the mine before he came back and helped the boy from the saddle, judicious in his movements so as not to have the Omega’s body run the full length of his own. If he was going to make the proclamation that he was off limits, he supposed he should pay attention to his own damned words. When he set Wolf down, he was surprised to note that the Omega stayed by his side, watching him as he went to the doe and examining exactly how he skinned her. He set the skin aside and then hung her up on Scrubb’s rack and flicked his gaze over to the boy a few times as he gutted her and carved her. Unlike most Omegas of Vero’s acquaintance, he did not shy from the gruesome scene, watching intently and without discernible emotion. When the meat was carved and the majority of it stored, he led Wolf down a small way into the mine where a hole had been dug out of the earth above to act as a chimney and Scrubb’s fire pit lay cold.

The boy immediately went to work on building a fire. As he didn’t have proper clothes, he was likely chilled from the air that seeped up from the interior of the mine and was keen to become warm again.

“Pretty _and_ useful. Maybe a prize worth thirty thousand,” Scrubb cackled.

Vero took the toe of his boot and in the loose regolith of the mine’s floor he dug in and then kicked to spray the ugly old pervert with it. “Don’t even look at 'im.”

He croaked out a laugh even as he was sprayed with the loose dirt, turning away his head to avoid getting it in his eyes. “A balm to my eyes, he is. You can’t hold a man’s gaze down, Vero.”

“I can put them right out,” he growled, his hackles raised.

“Fine, fine, keep your boy. If he were mine, I wouldn’t want a man lookin’ at 'im neither.”

Vero was about to tell him that Wolf wasn’t his—but he didn’t. Despite that it was true, there really was some kind of sick fantasy he couldn’t deny himself. He wanted the Omega. But who didn’t? He was as mysterious as he was beautiful—his mind something completely foreign and unknowable. Despite having been the cleanest and most unruffled boy in all of Cambry and all of the west even, he dove into Vero’s world with relish, his hands now stained by blood and soot, his face smudged with dirt and his clothes rumpled. He didn’t seem to mind in the least, far more interested in becoming useful. Vero didn’t have to guess why—he wanted to be claimed.

_That_ was the true mystery, he thought as he leaned against the rock wall and watched the boy successfully use the flint and steel nearby to catch some of the dry grasses Scrubb had saved up. How could life in luxury compare with nearly freezing to death in the cold winters, constantly evading the law, and sleeping on the cold hard ground? How could a boy like this ever think that he would be better off somehow with a man like Vero than a man like Schulze?

The sides of his mouth tipped downward. He was nothing. He wasn’t even all that smart. As soon as the boy recognized someone with more draw than he had, or more brains than he had, he would regret giving himself over. Vero rolled a cigarette, delicately licking the paper closed while Wolf stood up to assess how well he had built the fire. It was a well-done thing. When he turned around and saw the Alpha, Vero was lighting his cigarette with a match, puffing on it and peering at Wolf through the smoke.

“Done,” Wolf told him, pointing at the fire.

“Yeah, done,” Vero replied, taking a hard drag and blowing it out into a haze. “You’re a capable man, Omega.” He turned and, with his smoke still perched on his lip, set up to cook the doe Wolf had killed over the fire Wolf had made. As he knelt, Wolf sat beside him and watched him intently as if memorizing every movement. “You wanna know how to live in the wild. I get it,” he mumbled. “But you ain’t made for the wild, boy.”

“Boy…” Wolf murmured, his eyes on the fire.

Vero reached over and brushed the backs of his knuckles against the softness of the Omega’s jaw, capturing his attention. “You can’t stay, boy.”

Wolf probably didn’t understand the words but he did seem to grasp the meaning—perhaps from his tone or the look in his eyes. His scent darkened into a musty sadness and his shoulders slumped. In the orange flickering light of the fire, his green eyes that had shined like emeralds became dusty and dim.

A silence spread out between them and Vero’s heart was sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a little help with the translations here, thank you, thank you!
> 
> "Herr Po" is supposed to be "Mr. Butt." It's supposed to be a kind of foil for his character that makes you really think about how young he was when he came into the baron's possession. Kids deal with trauma in different ways and Wolf's way was in coming up with as nasty a name as he could conjure at the time.
> 
> :'3 My baby Wolf. I love him so much.


	4. Chapter 4

The dawn was quiet save the birds yammering in the trees, the robins tweeting back and forth to each other in tactless yells while the orioles sang and the jays screamed. The cacophony of sounds came as mist rose in the valley, curling up from the cold ground as the warm sun shined down over the dew that had glimmered over the leaves of the trees and the boughs of the pines. Izz adjusted the hat on her head while she leaned next to jack who was carving a little horse out of balsam with his sharp little knife, his eye for detail incredible. It was what made him a good marksman. It was what made him a good mercenary.

The post office sat just outside of Cambry and was located at the train station, a small building constructed out of sturdy logs with a porch and several benches for those waiting for the train. On the last three cars of that train would be bags of mail—one piece of which Izz and Jack were waiting for.

A familiar voice called out to them.

“Alpha!” Heavily German. Izz peered up from under the brim of her hat. “What are you doing here?! You are supposed to be finding my Wolf!” Schulze’s face was mottled with his anger and there was a deeper red flowering upon his flesh just over his collar. “You are just standing around as if I have paid you to laze about! This is not your vacation, Alpha! You are to find my Wolf and find him _now!_”

“Calm yourself,” Izz replied in a hard tone. “We know what we’re doing.”

“Obviously you cannot or you would have left the moment I sent you out and here I find that you have not left! You have not even attempted to leave Cambry! This is some kind of travesty! This is some kind of a ruse! You are meaning to fleece me! You are meaning to scam me out of my money and find me nothing for my trouble! He could be dead by now! He could be raped and destroyed!”

Izz nodded. “He could be. Trust us, Schulze, if your kidnapper wants what we think he wants, your boy is just fine. Maybe a little shaken.”

“_He is halfway to dead if he is not in my hands!_” he shrieked, his mottled face growing redder by the moment while Jack ceased his whittling and sculpting, his knife held to the small horse as he paused. “I expect you to heed me and to leave immediately! To find my boy! I want him back! You were recommended most highly and now I see that I have been led wrong! You will find him! You will find him or you will not see any of my money!”

Izz sighed. “Alpha, you need to sit down and relax while we do our jobs.”

“I will hire other hunters! Other bounty hunters! I will make them find my boy and you will have nothing! _NOTHING!_” He screamed the last word, spittle flying before he stormed off, stomping from the porch as the train whistle sounded low in the distance. He grunted and spoke to himself as he left in a huff, his fists balled at his sides and his posture stiff.

Jack’s voice was soft and mild. “You don’t think he will, do you?”

“He will,” Izz growled, her ire clear in her scent. “But they won’t know where to go. Not unless they follow us. Come on.” She rolled her shoulder along the side of the building to the corner, stepping forward on the platform until she was near the edge, watching the steam locomotive roll slowly down the tracks in its approach. Jack was close to her side and a little behind. He was always like that in his approach. He was always the one who had her back.

The train eased to a stop, the brakes squealing to stop the huge, lumbering black engine so that the cars were poised to be loaded and unloaded. It took a little time for most of the interchange to be complete but the relatively light mail bags were passed into the post office and Izz followed them with her eyes. What they wanted no doubt was in one of those bags and it was imperative that they get it as soon as they could. After all, there were a few rough bounty hunters who’d taken up temporary residence in the hotel down the hall from where she and Jack had been staying every night and she had no doubt that Schulze knew all about them.

The post man at the counter gave her a pointed look when she approached. “Now Alpha, you’ll have to wait for us to sort them like all the other times you’ve come up here wantin’ the mail.”

“I can’t wait, Beta,” she growled. “This is a matter of life and death.”

“Well Mr. Schulze gets quite a bit of mail and we can’t have you just pawing through all of it without his approval.”

“Whatever you find in those bags, I want it. Just like yesterday and just like the day before.”

“I told you, Alpha,” he said impotently, sweat on his brow and nervousness in his scent. “I ain’t got the right to give you this.”

“You ain’t got the gun to deny it either.”

He suck in a harsh breath through his nose, indignant but resigned. He’d handed over all of Schulze’s mail the previous two days and he would do so again today. Izz didn’t keep any of it. It didn’t matter unless it was what she wanted. He walked away from the window and she stood there, watching him filter through it until he’d gathered quite a few parchment envelopes and he put them in a stack on the window ledge for her.

“Thank you, sir,” she provided before she cut the stack in two and handed one to Jack so that he could look through them. It only took him a moment.

“This is it, Belle.”

A plain parchment piece, Jack opened it and she peered over his shoulder, a delicate lock of brown hair—not quite the color as the oil painting but close enough—was cradled in one of the creases. Her mouth moved as she read through the simple words, those at least part of her limited literacy. Jack was the one who could read well—Izz had been a late learner in that respect. She frowned at the words at the bottom, well-formed letters far more sophisticated than those of the ransom. “Jack?”

“Hmm?”

Her cheeks were pink. “What’s that say?” She pointed down to them sheepishly. It was always a little embarrassing when she had to ask.

“I dunno, it’s not English,” he replied, giving her a small, warm glance. “You got the rest of it though?”

Her face was hot. “Yeah…easy enough.”

“It’s postmarked at the small station north of here and I’ll bet you he’s hiding out in those hills somewhere. If your nose and my nose can root him out, that’ll be it for them.” He smiled, pulling a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. He put the cigarette in his mouth and then plucked up the little lock of the Omega’s hair, pressing it to his nose to scent it. “Mmm, sweet as honey.”

Izz took it from him and gave it a good whiff, studying the scent.

_Wild winterberries and the crunch of cold snow beneath an elk’s hoof. The wisps of breath on a stinging morning just before the dawn. The gentle caress of the bright sun over snow and the prayers fervently whispered for just a little more warmth. Lacy frost. Numb fingers. Reddened ears. The bite of the mountains._

She whispered as she stared down at the simple bit of hair between her fingers. “It’s beautiful.”

Jack nodded. “It’s no wonder the boy’s his favorite. How many do you think he has?”

Izz blinked. “I hadn’t given it thought. How many Omegas is a reasonable amount?”

The Beta stared at her without humor. “Out here in this country? None.” With that, he took the lock of hair from her fingers and put it back into the parchment, folding it up and slipping it into his pocket before he turned toward where they’d hitched the horses. Izz watched him throw the reins up and grab the horn to mount, sliding his shapely thigh over the saddle before he leaned over to pat at Hornet’s neck.

“Well,” she told him, mounting her own horse and leading him toward the dirt road. “Can’t argue with that. It’s hard enough to find one anyhow, might as well have none. I do well enough, I think.” She passed him a little grin and was pleased to find his answering smile. They’d been taking full advantage of the hotel’s fine warm bed, fucking every night and every morning until they were tuckered out and panting. It was more difficult to fuck in the wilderness though Izz rather enjoyed it, feeling more like a natural animal in many ways when she was bare-assed and pounding into Jack’s tight body while the moon shone over them both and the animals let out their own mating calls.

They rode for a little while, Izz casting slight glances over her shoulder every so often. It was prudent, after all, to see if one was being followed. Unfortunately the wind wasn’t in her favor so she would have had to rely on her sight and most seasoned hunters were decent at keeping out of it. Still, she saw nothing suspicious and they rode on together, eating up some time that day in their journey into the hills and toward the mountains. It was gorgeous in this part of the country and she couldn’t help but be nearly arrested by the beauty around her—small white and blue flowers springing up from the earth around large gray boulders that stuck up from the earth beside the path.

One day this would be a fine memory for her, she thought, watching Jack’s body as he moved with Hornet’s walk, admiring the way he sat in the saddle and the line of his legs to where his feet rested in the stirrups. She would grow old with him, she thought. She _hoped._ This way of life sometimes didn’t have happy endings but for Izz, there was no other choice. She and Jack would save Jack’s family ranch and she would come to it, the Alpha that would care for each and every one of his brothers and sisters, tending to the horses and the cows and the chickens, repairing things that needed repairs and loving her mate through every night. It didn’t matter out here how odd they were. It didn’t matter out here how _wrong_ it was. The only thing that mattered was that one day Izz and Jack were going to be _happy._

“You’re downwind and I can still smell you, Belle,” Jack told her over his shoulder. “You’re gettin’ sentimental again.”

“Ah, shut up,” she chided. “You get yerself sentimental sometimes too.”

He laughed, the sound low in his throat. “Yeah,” he agreed softly, the sound almost missing her ears. “Yeah I do. C'mon, it’s up here.”

This station was even smaller than the one in Cambry, tucked into what should have been the middle of nowhere. It was likely on its way to becoming defunct since all the mining operations seemed to have moved further south but here it still stood and here it still took mail for those who were living in cabins way up in the mountains. They hitched Marble and Hornet onto the old, soft and rotting hitching post and sauntered over to the post window.

“How can I help you folks?” came the cheery voice of a fat little Beta man. His scent was light and fresh and his smile wide. “I’ve got water from the pump out around back and there’ll be some food comin’ on the next train in about two hours but right now all I’ve got is some offal and some coffee.”

“We’re alright,” Izz told him, finding it difficult not to be caught in by his contagious positivity. “You know what we was really lookin’ fer? Have ye seen an Omega recently?”

“An Omega?” His eyes were wide as they came down to the window ledge in recollection. “Well, come to think of it, I suppose he could have been an Omega. Didn’t get a whiff of him at all but he was pretty ‘nough.”

“Brown hair, short,” Jack supplied. “Green eyes.”

“Weren’t close enough to see 'is eyes but 'e did have brown hair. Dressed nice though he was a little scuffed up. The Alpha with 'im seemed real kind to 'im. You lookin’ fer him too?”

Izz glanced at Jack. “Yeah, we’re lookin’ fer both. But if anyone else comes askin’ about 'em, might you tell 'em you ain’t never seen an Omega?” She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out one of the neatly folded bills they’d had for occasions like this. The Beta’s eyes lit up at the sight of it and his fingers scrambled for it as it hit the counter.

“Oh yes, Ma'am. Oh yes, Alpha. Certainly. I ain’t never seen an Omega in my whole life. No Ma'am.”

“Now which way did you see them go off to?”

He tucked the bill into his pocket and pointed off in the direction of a small path that was heavily overgrown. “That right there leads up into the hills. It’ll take a few hours to get there but there’s nothin’ but some mines up there and there are a few of 'em. If they were headed up there, no doubt they got a camp up there in one of 'em. Can’t know what they mean to do but I ain’t the type to pretend to know about anyone’s business.”

“Right,” she grunted, turning toward Jack and taking the cigarette he held up for her, placing it between her lips and lighting it with a match.

“Well,” Jack mused, “I guess we’re gonna be checkin’ some mines. Let’s hope that boy’s scent is heavy enough in the air to give us a good lead.”

The breeze shifted and Izz caught the hard scent of an Alpha in the distance from the direction in which they’d come. She eyed the road, still unable to see anyone. “Let’s hope. And let’s hope whoever’s followed us up here can’t track us as well as they think they can.” She passed another bill to the old Beta who clutched it tight as soon as it hit the counter. “If they ask about us, we left down the road, you understand?”

“Yes ma'am. Absolutely, ma'am. I never saw nothin’ and you left without a word.”

“Good man,” she replied before she remounted and squeezed Marble with her thighs and urged him into a quick walk toward the trail. “Come on, Jack. I wanna get this done and over with. I wanna see the look on yer mama’s face when we can give her all that money and she won’t have to worry no more.” She wanted to lay her man down in a bed she built and kiss him knowing full well the worst thing she had to do on the morrow was muck out a horse’s stall and milk an ornery cow. She wanted a life—a real life. One built on dreams and laughter. That’s all she wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cried like 50 times at Netflix's new Christmas movie and then self-medicated with Linda Hamilton's sexy face in Dante's Peak because there's nothing better than a woman in an action movie with lots of explosions. (Well...and Pierce Brosnan was there too...)


	5. Chapter 5

Was there no Alpha upon this Earth who could see him as _Wolf_? As more than beautiful? As more than the price attached to him? He’d been ransomed before but this man, this Alpha, had seemed different somehow. He was strong, capable, and he was alone. There was no large amount of gang members who had overtaken the rail car this time—there was only him. The clearest possible avenue for escape was to convince him that Wolf needed to to be kept—to appeal to his protective nature. Alphas in groups were harder to influence but Alphas alone—they were only too easily led. Or, that was what Wolf had _thought_. It seemed that this particular Alpha, despite being _stupid_, was just a slave to money as all the rest of them.

But…was there still hope?

He had been hoping to avoid having to pull out the desperate measures but when it came to men like this, there were only a few things a boy could do. He’d tried to prove himself useful. He’d learned quite a bit in such a small amount of time but it would take more than that for this Alpha to realize his true worth—more than just what a ransom could pay. Ah, it would be so much easier if he could _talk_ to the man. No matter, he thought crossly as the sun eased down below the trees and sank into the horizon. No matter. Desperation was driving him now and all he could do was make certain that he would not be ignored. There was an instinct within every Alpha that could not be denied—protect the Omega. Protect the Omega beyond everything.

When the time came for them to bed down for the night, they were somewhat deeper inside the mine, having migrated down there to a larger camp set-up that this older Alpha had created inside what seemed to be a network of tunnels that led into the mountain face. The air inside had the damp chilliness that caverns normally adopted and Wolf fixed himself next to the young and virile Alpha who’d taken him.

_Vero._ That was his name, he thought as he held himself and watched him set up the bedroll. That was what the terrible old man had called him. Vero. It was an easy name and he mouthed it a few times. He would need to remember it. It wouldn’t do to simply call the man _Alpha_. The name was important. It was nearly vital. He couldn’t appeal to an individual man’s protective instincts without a name to attach to his pleas.

Pleas there would be. He was willing to put himself through the pain if it could help him keep away from Schulze. _Herr Po_, he thought with little humor. When he’d been younger, it was all he could do to keep himself from going mad. How could a man take an Omega who was so young? Having presented at just 15, he was so very young and so very beautiful that it was predictable that nearly every Alpha should look his way but how could a poor farmer refuse a powerful man like Schulze when he offered so much money for a son? Wolf stared at Vero with eyes he knew were hard and was glad that he was not looking.

Alphas. They didn’t know the trials of men like Wolf. They thought themselves lords of everything, able to pass around Omegas like chattel. They thought Omegas to have a price and, when poor farmers accepted those payments, the view was only solidified.

Four years. Four years of slavery. Four years of no escape. Ham-fisted touches over his thighs and hips. Sloppy lips and wiping away the wetness of cold saliva on his skin.

When Vero was finished, Wolf once again came to him and pulled him eagerly down to the bedroll, ignoring the incredulous laugh of the man when he tucked them both in together to share in the Alpha’s heat. This was ideal. What was not ideal was the disgusting old man who was to sleep too-close to them and, with Wolf’s plan, was likely to muck everything up. He needed this Alpha alone. Still, there was too much risk. He had to do it tonight. He had to induce a heat.

It was difficult for some Omegas. They couldn’t handle creating the amount of stress that was necessary for the surge but Wolf had done it before—he’d been forced to do it before. Stress heats were less likely to create pregnancies and so they had been the only instances in which Schulze had brought himself to knot him. Of course, to design an Omega who could create their own stress heats by choice was a process—one defined by no less than torture. 

Wolf shuddered and even as he did so he lay upon Vero’s chest and sighed when the Alpha rubbed over his back and gently caressed the back of his neck. A simple squeeze there and everything would be calm again—no more nerves. No more anxiety. But Vero didn’t squeeze, he merely gave his light touches and coursed his hands up and down Wolf’s back until they stilled and his breathing evened. An hour passed, more or less, and the Omega could hear both men slightly snoring.

He clenched his jaw, allowing himself to flit through painful memories—those of Schulze tying him to the bedpost, forcing him to sit upon the expensive rug while the short Alpha whipped him with a wet towel. In Vero’s arms, he was warm and comfortable but in his memories, he was cold, naked, and wet. He recalled sobbing, crying out for help. He recalled being left there while business associates came into the car and ignored his sobbing pleas. They didn’t even look at him when he screamed for aid. He let himself relive this and more—his knees rubbing on the carpet as he was forced to put his mouth around the Alpha’s girthy penis, his head held hard and pushed forward and back until he was choking and weeping. He let himself soak in the emotions he had felt in those moments. He let himself recall the panic of being held at the door, naked and barely standing on the tips of his toes while the train barreled on as fast as it could go and the landscape rushed past them. He remembered the rail baron’s unhinged laughter as he threatened to toss Wolf out—to let him die in the wilderness alone, holding him hard by the back of his neck as he tried to struggle but felt his arms growing weaker.

It wasn’t a rush, his heat. It was gradual and it crept in stages, the steady influx of heavy emotion allowing it to slowly cast its insidious tendrils over his body. It was meant to force an Alpha to his side. Its purpose was to force an Alpha to protect him. He needed that now.

_Do your work._ _Give me his protection. Do what you were meant to do._

He felt it along his neck at first, the incessant warmth and the sweat that began to dampen his clothes. His scent was becoming intolerably sweet and enticing and he could feel himself beginning to take in heavy breaths, tucked up against Vero and able now to detect every hint of sexual prowess and virility in him. Vero’s Alpha spice morphed in his nose, becoming more than attractive—overwhelmingly arousing. An Alpha so close, their scents mingling together. It was nothing like Schulze. When he smelt the baron’s scent whether in heat or not, there was an underlying darkness…there was fear. Here, there was no such thing. Vero would not hurt him, his hazed mind concluded—Vero would help him. Vero would save him. He just needed a little bit of guidance. He just needed to see Wolf as he was meant to be seen.

The Alpha was still asleep but it was restless, the back of his mind already reacting to Wolf’s heat and his manhood stiffening against the Omega’s thigh. He didn’t awaken even when Wolf dragged himself upward and pressed his lips down to kiss him, the stubble of his unshaven whiskers tickling and attractive. Vero let out a sweet low sound into Wolf’s mouth, his lips responding even without full consciousness as he shifted beneath Wolf’s body to cradle the Omega with his thighs.

_“Yes,”_ Wolf told him. Most of what he said the man would clearly not understand but that was one he found to be fairly obvious. _“Please take me.”_ He whispered against the man’s lips, kissing him with sweeping and light feather kisses that he bestowed over and over again. _“Make me yours. I want to be yours. I want to get away…”_ Vero’s hands were on his hips and his thighs, his fingers pressing gently through his trousers as his nose took deep, searching breaths.

“_Mmm…Omega…_” He stirred a bit under him and then his golden eyes fluttered open and the cloud of rut was within them. His words were low and Wolf couldn’t understand him when he spoke though he didn’t sound angered or annoyed. He spoke in half-sentences, his hands caressing Wolf’s legs and hips and back until he touched at the Omega’s face and jaw, drawing him down for deeper kisses.

Wolf’s heart soared. Surely this man would take him. He would mark him and protect him and keep him from being ripped back into Schulze’s control. If Wolf could only just grit his teeth through Vero’s knot, take the relief and the bite that the man could give him…he could get away. He could escape into the wilderness. If he had to, he would take Vero’s gun and shoot him with it but first he needed the bite. First he needed the bondmark that would protect him when he set off on his own.

The man’s kisses were nothing like Schulze’s. They were soft and giving and nearly reverent. There was nothing here that suggested that Vero was obsessed with control and even remaining on his back was puzzling to the little Omega above him. How could an Alpha be at ease when in rut on his back? How could he leave Wolf like this above him and not have the itch to pull him under and sink inside him? There had never been a moment where Schulze had ever allowed Wolf to be above him, often holding him down to brutally take him when he had pushed too far against what the man wished of him. He had too much spirit, the Alpha had told him. Vero, it seemed, didn’t mind.

The Alpha mumbled out a few soft words before he reached between them, groping in the tight space inside their bedroll until he could unfasten Wolf’s trousers, dipping his warm fingers beneath to cup his little cock and bring it up against his tummy.

_“Mmm,”_ Wolf groaned softly, hoping not to rouse the other Alpha sleeping not so far away. _“Please Alpha…I want you to fuck me. Bite me.”_ Only “Alpha” made Vero take in a sharp breath, his rough fingertips sending sparks of pleasure through Wolf’s body as they rubbed at the underside of his member. He couldn’t help himself. He rocked into Vero’s hand, his hips undulating like he had been taught. He both longed to be filled and abhorred the notion entirely. If there was a way to be bitten without having to go through this… He gasped when he felt Vero’s fingers dip further into his trousers, working hard to cup his sac in a warm palm until he could reach further to dip his fingers against the slick-wet entrance of his body. _“Yes…”_ he murmured, the haze in his mind unbelievable as his inner Omega screamed to take the probing digit inside him. He reached back, his hand coming over Vero’s through his trousers, pressing at his fingers to encourage the breach.

His lip trembled and he had to bite down on it to stifle a cry when the Alpha’s fingers slid inside him. He could feel himself tensing around the intrusion, grasping as if to wordlessly ask for more. After all these years. After all these heats his body would always remember this desperation and force him to feel it. He wanted more. He wanted everything. Still…there was no fear. Not here and not with Vero. It was almost novel in a way. He kept his lip firmly between his teeth as he peered down into the Alpha’s lust-filled eyes and rocked back against his fingers, rubbing his small cock against the man’s forearm.

Vero mumbled something and though Wolf couldn’t understand it, the deep rumble of his voice was enough for him to give out a small breath of arousal.

As much as Wolf often believed that nothing could draw a man’s eyes from him, Vero’s gaze flicked toward the tunnel that led back to the entrance, his body gaining an unnatural stiffness. He didn’t respond to any of Wolf’s small mewls and, after a few seconds, he withdrew his fingers from within the Omega’s body, pulling his hand out of his trousers altogether.

_“Wait…Alpha…”_

Vero was still looking outward, wiping his fingers and hand on the bedroll. He made a sharp hiss to the odious companion of his and extracted himself from under Wolf, leaving the boy alone with his little manhood jutting out of his trousers.

Wolf’s heart was beating hard, arousal pounding in his blood. He couldn’t just leave him like this, could he?

There were hurried words between the companions and Vero quietly barked out words at him, roughly moving him out of the bedroll and rolling it up, quickly packing his things together while Wolf tucked himself back into his pants and shivered more from his heat than from the chill of the mine. Something was wrong. Someone was coming. Wolf couldn’t hear anything nor smell anything off but his nose was blind to all else beside the Alpha who had offered him at least a small amount of affection. He wanted that Alpha…he wanted him now.

A hushed and tense conversation was occurring between the two Alphas and Wolf felt the familiar thorns of fear begin to prickle their way into his consciousness. They were arguing about his heat…his scent. The old man motioned toward Wolf and Vero’s hand rested lightly on his revolver. Wolf tensed, unsure of what to do. Fortunately, nothing was to be done. The old man relented and motioned with his hand down the mine so Vero grasped Wolf’s arm and took him along with their supplies deeper into the darkness.

They walked for a small time and the cold and the motion did much to soothe Wolf’s heart and mind though it did nothing to soothe the pulsing arousal in his loins. Without any sleep and with his heat in full swing, he began to feel disoriented in the surrounding, heavy darkness and he leaned against Vero, the Alpha’s scent about to drive him into a frenzy. It was his only focus…that was, until the loud report of gunfire sounded behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very happy birthday to PrettyCharlie this morning! I forgot how close together our birthdays were! :D Everyone in the U.S. who is traveling today to see their families--be safe and have a happy Thanksgiving!


	6. Chapter 6

“_Fuck, fuck, fuck…_” he whispered, his lip trembling as adrenaline coursed through his veins and he ran with the little Omega down the dark mine, hoping that they weren’t about to fall straight down a long mineshaft. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how deep this mine could have gone but Scrubb had told him that there was an exit somewhere. _Somewhere._ The place wasn’t linear. There were off-shoots and twists and turns and presumably shafts that could kill them if they plummeted down into them. Vero was nearly dragging Wolf with him, keeping him close to his body as though he could protect him should a bullet fly from behind. 

It was difficult to run with a heavy and pulsing erection tenting his jeans but there was no stopping. Once the protection mode had been activated, that was it for an Alpha. His one instinctual response to danger was to get the Omega as far away from it as possible and if that course was proven ineffectual, he was to fight to the death. As they ran deeper and deeper into the cold bowels of the mountain, he began to believe that the old man must have lied to him. That there was no exit.

_Serves him right to get his head blown off then doesn’t it?_ He was assuming, of course, that the gunshots he’d heard were from Scrubb meeting his maker and damned if he was gonna muster enough empathy to feel sorry about somebody finally sending that son of a bitch to hell. He could feel loose rocks skittering from his and Wolf’s fast footsteps and the sounds of those steps were muffled by the stone walls that absorbed all noise. He slowed a bit, training his ears to focus for any hint behind them and, upon hearing the telltale tones of voices, he skimmed his fingers across the uneven dirt and stone wall, keeping his touch upon it until he found an opening and he whirled he and Wolf inside it.

It was damp and musty and it was another tunnel.

“_Shhhh…_” he told Wolf, finding his lips with his fingers and then pressing over them. That cloying and impossibly alluring scent would lead them right to the pair and so Vero explored this new path, pulling the boy along with him to discover that there was a distinct breeze being pulled in from wherever it ended.

The Omega clung to him, his small hands bunched in the fabric of his shirt as he was pulled along. He was breathing hard, his heat heavy over him. He hadn’t lost control of himself and Vero was immensely thankful for that. There were some who could not stand nor walk. Some who wept bitterly and others who attacked any near Alpha with a ferocious arousal. Wolf did none of those things and merely panted, trembling and shuddering as his scent wafted in a beckoning cloud around him. The clearness in the small breeze from further down this branch of the tunnel cast a stunning contrast to the spice of Wolf’s heat and Vero took solace in it. Soon they would be out and running. The opening came into view and Vero could see the silver light of the moon as it shone in. Soon. Soon he could whistle for his horse and they could ride off together and lose these—

“_Stop you right son of a bitch!_”

He skidded to a halt as a huge Alpha form filled the opening and was silhouetted in moonlight. His _Alpha_ voice was low and grating over Vero’s senses and his revolver was in his hand. Vero breathed hard and felt the Omega in his arms tense involuntarily.

“That’s right…like a rat in a trap…I can see the fear in your eyes.”

Vero was a good shot. He was a fast shot. He was the fastest of the gang and he’d never met a man faster. But the bullet that drilled through this Alpha didn’t come from Vero’s gun and he very nearly felt the puff of air from it against his neck as it whizzed past him and buried itself straight into the brute’s brain.

“Don’t move,” he heard a woman order, her voice loud in the tunnel.

Vero ignored her, turning around with Wolf tight against him to the side, trying to keep his own body between the hunter and the Omega. The dim silver moonlight didn’t reach all the way to where she stood but he could tell she was an Alpha. If she spoke again he could judge her distance. Then he could shoot.

“Don’t be stupid, Alpha.”

Stupid was what Vero did best, he thought just before he reached for his gun. With her revolver already out, he was at a disadvantage and clearly she was a crack shot—stupid really was what Vero did best. But Vero was _fast_. She didn’t get a shot off before he’d squeezed his trigger from the hip and as a cry warbled down the tunnel, Vero whirled around and dashed with the Omega still held tight to him, leaping over the corpse of the other bounty hunter and dodging into the brush.

He let out a high-pitched whistle for Maelstrom and ran with the Omega as fast as he possibly could, shifting his handle on the boy so that he could hold him with both his arms, tossing him up onto the saddle when the horse came to him and then swinging up himself even as the stallion still trotted beside. He kicked the horse into a hearty gallop and rode hard over the trails until it tapered into wilderness again and he could hear the wolves howling in the distance as the pines grew thick around him and there was silence. There was no breeze and decent cover. If he covered the boy with the thick bedroll he’d packed up and taken with them, he could likely stifle the heat scent—but for how long?

“_Alpha…_” he heard Wolf whimper and he adjusted his view to peer down at his charge, finding him alarmingly wet, sweat and slick trickling down the saddle and soaking into the crotch of Vero’s jeans. “_Help…_”

_No. No…_ He had to ride. He had to get as far away from this point as he could and if that meant no stopping then it meant no stopping. It was likely that to pause anywhere for the night would be a mistake. He could be tracked. He could be found. With the boy giving off a scent like this, there would be no telling what types of hunter could be looking for him and how many might find him.

Of course…he _had_ hit her, he thought.

Leading Maelstrom up a mostly dry creek bed, he had the stallion climb the shallow grade until he reached a large pool that had been made by a beaver’s dam. Nearby was a rock overhang that created an alcove big enough for a small camp that would be shielded from the breeze and the weather. It was a decent spot to stop…that was, if he could bring himself to lay with an Omega he could not fuck.

God, he couldn’t handle this. He brought Maelstrom into the tightly packed pines around the small campsite and brought the Omega down into the alcove where he quickly forced him into the bedroll, bundling him in tight even as he struggled.

_“Nein…nein…”_

“You ain’t got one lick o’ sense to yeh, do yah boy?” Vero asked him, finally calming long enough to feel the fog of his rut descending over him again. It was impossible to forget how good it had felt to have Wolf’s tight ring of muscle contracting around his fingers as he’d explored the boy’s body and now, with the idea of being alone again and out of the very jaws of capture… No! No…he couldn’t. He couldn’t give in to the clawing need that radiated out from his groin and his lower belly. His knot was tight and full and heavy and he felt himself weighted with blood between his thighs. God he wanted this Omega. God, he _needed_ this Omega. Beautiful, mysterious, and _dangerous_, he needed him like he needed to breathe. It surely was _Vero_ who hadn’t a lick of sense. If anyone were to come upon them after he’d tied them together…and not only that, he had been told explicitly not to fuck him or harm him.

Wild thoughts were beginning to fall through his mind that were familiar but stronger now that there was a wicked boy in heat before him. _I could have him. He could be mine. Who really needs all that money anyway? Would 30k be worth it? He wants me. He wants me to have him, to bite him, to make him mine. He needs my protection. He needs me. He needs me._

_ **He needs me.** _

Vero leaned forward quickly but then stopped and brought himself back up, breaking away from the thoughts he had of kissing the little one before him. He covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t let himself go down this road. If he was too involved, if he lost his mind, he wouldn’t be able to stop the boy from crying out his pleasure. They had to hide. They had to _stay hidden_. They couldn’t just fuck wherever they wanted and damn the consequences.

Wolf was struggling inside the bedroll, pressing against it and writhing, his body coated in sweat and the scent of slick beginning to leech through the material. His whimpers were soft but his eyes were still coherent despite their heat-cloud. His lip was trembling and he was mumbling out words that Vero couldn’t have understood even had they been English.

_He needs me._ He grabbed at his head, pressing the heels of his palms into his temples as if that could bring back his sanity. It was for naught. He could no longer focus on the woods around them or the stillness of the pool that reflected the moonlight beside them. He could no longer think about anything other than the boy whose body called out to him, cried and begged for his lust and and his love. Vero felt himself shaking as he stripped off his jacket and his shirt, unfastening his jeans until he could pull out his straining girth.

Wolf managed to pull himself from the bedroll, his trousers off in a flash and he nearly tore the fine material of his shirt when he pulled it from his body, throwing it as though it had offended him. He was pale in the moonlight, naked and shining with his sweet sweat. When he knelt on the bedding and presented with his rump held high, Vero was arrested by the sheen of his slick that had coated his backside, more of it gushing from his body, desperate for a knot that could satisfy him.

He was holding himself, his fingers tight around the base of him. There was no more logic now. Vero was as dumb as he was handsome, he thought of himself, but the thought was fleeting and inconsequential in the moment.

He brought one big hand up to Wolf’s backside, letting his fingers trail over wet flesh. “_Wolf…_”

“_Alpha…_” He whimpered, his body giving great shudders as he reached between his own thighs and stroked at his hard little cock. He mumbled a few things that were unintelligible and then clearly, _oh so clearly_, murmured the one thing that could drive Vero over the edge of his need. “_Vero…_”

The sound of his name was too much. He could have spent right then. Instead, he pulled the boy by his hips and poised himself right at that grasping entrance, easing forward until he felt the slide of that tight ring over him. “_Wolf…_” he whispered into the night. “_Shhh…_”

The boy was beside himself, his hands behind, spreading his bottom and panting as he murmured out jumbled exotic words that meant nothing to the rutting Alpha. For all Vero knew he could have been begging for anything or calling him a fool or telling him that all of this was one big trap meant to kill him. But instinct screamed at him that Wolf was begging for him and so he began to move, undulating his hips to rock the boy back and forth over his stiff shaft, butting his knot up against him with every go of it.

“_Alpha…_” he sighed. “_Vero…_” he whimpered.

“Don’t do this to me,” he begged the boy, quickening his pace until he could feel his body thrumming with the promise of release, wet flesh slapping against wet flesh and a desperation itching in his teeth. He wanted to bite the boy. He wanted to bite him and claim him and own him. He wanted to keep him just as he had asked Vero to keep him and run off into the wilderness to have him for his own forever. _Forever_.

Just as the thought crested, he pulled the boy back to begin easing him over his knot, pressing against his opening firmly. Much to his surprise, it wasn’t difficult at all and his knot worked in almost immediately, the tightness of his body over Vero’s swelled organ causing a low guttural cry to release from the back of his throat. There was no purer fashion of finding out how _alive_ one was than to take all the pleasures of an Alpha’s rut, that was for certain. Not content to be still, he moved again, plowing into Wolf’s body in shallow thrusts that jostled the bulk of him and sent Wolf careening over the peak of his orgasm. It was a quiet affair despite the violent shudders and convulsions he enjoyed and even as he still twitched within it, his little hand came up behind him to grasp at Vero’s hair, pulling his head down to clumsily press the Alpha’s face against his neck.

_He wants my bite. He wants it so badly. God, if I could…if I could…if I could… _He mouthed at the boy, his climax rushing through him as Wolf clutched hard at his hair. He groaned against his throat, scraping his teeth against his soft flesh and gently sucking and mouthing him, toying dangerously near to the bite he so clearly wished for.

The Omega begged. He pleaded. He wriggled and panted and in the end he wept bitterly but Vero did not bite him, holding him tight and close even as his scent soured and molded. When his fitful sobs had abated and he was again silent in Vero’s arms, tucked against him as they lay upon their sides, the Alpha whispered softly.

“_I’m sorry, little one. But I ain’t got enough to give yah…though I would give yah the world._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m gonna tear that son of a bitch into a thousand pieces,” Izz growled, her hands shaking while she handed Jack one of their tin cups full of fresh spring water. He was sitting against the side of the entrance to the mine with his sharp eyes on her face. She’d bandaged him up well and he could still move his arm but there was a hole in his shoulder—a few more inches into him and it would have been a hole in his heart. Izz couldn’t even think about it. “I’m gonna tear his arms off first,” she grumbled, turning around and standing up to kick the sorry corpse of the asshole’s friend, sending it flopping a few feet with her Alpha strength.

“Calm down, Belle,” Jack told her softly, sipping the water until it was gone, their flickering fire reflecting in his eyes. “We gotta get this bullet out while the bleedin’s not bad.”

She closed her eyes hard and sighed before she turned around to face him. “Now?”

“Now is better than later. Can’t be too healed. Longer it stays, the worse the fever might be if one comes.”

Izz had been the one of them who’d taken to a fever after having been shot. They’d been shot plenty of times but mostly just glancing blows—Izz had managed to get drilled in the leg one summer and the fever had been intense. She’d barely known her own name in the thick of it but she’d pulled through with Jack by her side, tending to her and keeping her sane with chipped ice baths and gentle kisses to her hair that she could barely sense. True love, she thought, was in waiting for your mate to die and still holding her hand.

She came to him, taking their lantern and setting it close to him on one of the wooden stools so that the light could shine directly on his wound. She gently helped him in unwrapping the bandages and set them aside with new ones while Jack made sure he wasn’t seeping too much blood. Her voice was low. “Your belt, Jack.”

“Right.” He pulled it off and folded it, ready to place it between his teeth as she rifled in his bag for the long metal tweezers they’d stolen from some surgeon a few years back. They’d been one of the better ideas they’d had through their lives together—certainly easier than digging something out with a knife. “Be gentle with me, baby, I’m sensitive.”

She snorted a little laugh. “Don’t you worry, honey, you’re in good hands. Now put that belt in your mouth. Else you’re gonna scream.”

The light was just good enough from the lantern that she could just barely see the shine of the bullet when she pressed against either side of Jack’s wound. The blood flow had tapered off with the pressure and keeping him upright but it was still a challenge when it seeped a bit, obscuring her target. Jack was trembling even as she simply probed him but he kept quiet. She held the long instrument over the flickering flames of the fire for a small while, waiting for it to cool before she began to delicately search for purchase on the slippery bullet.

“Mmmrgh,” Jack groaned, his breath hard as he blinked away tears.

“You’re alright, honey,” Izz told him. “I’ll suck your cock after all this if you want.” He didn’t make any sound in reply but gave a great blow from his nose to let off some of the steam from his pain. “I’ll suck your cock so good you’ll forget this ever even happened.” She wiped at her face with her hand and adjusted the lantern a little bit, frowning a bit. The bullet was being stubborn and so she directed her next words to it, breathing them out while she tried to concentrate. “Come on, sweetheart. Come on. You know you wanna come ta ol’ Belle. Jack ain’t any good for yah. You need a good Alpha girl.”

Jack blew out again, sweat beading on his forehead while his teeth clamped hard into his belt. He trembled, his normally mild Beta scent hardening into a mashed up sour and bitter set of tones that was setting Izz on edge.

“Come on, baby. Come on.” She finally caught a hold of it and squeezed as hard as she dared, gently pulling it out and, when it was fully extracted, breathing in relief. “All in one piece. Thank God.”

Jack spit out his belt, his voice breathy with his pain while fresh blood oozed from the wound. “Save it as your fuckin’ good luck charm if you like it so much. Goddamn it, I’m about to faint.”

Izz tucked the bullet in her pocket and then knelt beside him, keeping him upright while she bandaged him up tight with new bandages. Despite all his caterwaulin’, he stayed very much conscious and she even got him to eat a little bit of the salted meat she’d brought with them.

After a little while starin’ at the fire, Jack sighed through his nose. “You gonna stack them corpses somewhere?”

“Yeah,” she replied. She’d already found a small secluded spot not a long way out of the mouth of the mine where a pit had naturally formed in the rock. “Don’t you worry your head about that, Beta. I’ll take care of it. You worry yourself about gettin’ that shoulder healed up. I don’t want ya doin’ nothin’ that would make that tougher.”

“We have to get that Omega,” he reminded her and she felt a little pinch in her heart.

“There ain’t no reason to be gettin’ that Omega iffin’ you’re dead, Jack.” She could hear her own voice growing harder. “I feel for your ma, I do, but I ain’t goin’ all the way out into the wilds for her. I’m doin’ it fer you.”

He closed his eyes. “Belle, I need this. I need my family to be looked after and safe. For that, I need money. If I died tomorrow, would you just abandon my family?”

She gritted her teeth. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“Then what the fuck are you saying?”

Izz touched his face to open his eyes and bring them to her. “I can’t live without you, Jack. I don’t think it’s possible for me. I’m here because this might be the one that lets us stop all o’ this nonsense. This might be the one job that really lets us go to the farm and stay there forever. We can do this. But I can’t go on without you if I lose you. There’s no point in havin’ that dream if you’re not there with me. If you died I…well I don’t know what I’d do.”

He touched her hand on his cheek. “You’d go on livin’, Belle. Because that’s what I would want you to do.”

“Did I ever tell you,” she smiled, “that sometimes I don’t give a shit about what you want?”

He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her, his lips sweet and giving. His scent had evened out despite still having the lingering traces of pain that made Izz a little nervous. When he was finished kissing her, he placed his forehead against hers and kept her hand on his face. “Alpha, I need you to take care of my family. With me, or without me. You’re my girl. You’re Jack’s girl. You’ll always be Jack’s girl…whether I’m around anymore or not.”

She studied him, his handsome face and his eyes that were both serious and devil-may-care. She rubbed her thumb over the rough stubble on his cheek and chin and then kissed him again. “You gonna drive me crazy, Beta.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”

He squeezed her hand. “Let’s get some sleep. We might not catch up to ‘em tomorrow but we certainly won’t if we’re tired. That boy’s hard into heat and it’s probably not a natural one. We’ve got just about twenty-four hours to catch that scent again. How you feelin’ after?”

“Knot’s gone down,” she replied. “A little disappointin’. I was hopin’ you might suffer it.”

He teased her. “I’d take your knot, baby.”

“Not now you wouldn’t. Not like you are.” Izz helped him up and set him in his bedroll, moving hers closer to his while the orange light of the fire played over his features, the high contrast making him look far older than he was. “I can’t shake this feelin’, Beta. That there’s somethin’ about this job that’s wrong.”

He sighed, laying himself down while he stared up at her, his good arm as a pillow behind head head. “I feel it. But we can’t afford to think too hard about this kinda thing. We’ve never had a problem before, have we?”

“We’ve never torn apart mates before.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “What? What are you talkin’ about, Belle?”

She shook her head. She couldn’t rightly describe what she had smelled—what she had instinctively known. It wasn’t something that many Betas could understand—how exactly scent played into what an Alpha felt and needed. So many things about the ways that Alphas and Omegas interacted were hidden to the sex without the impulsive needs. Just as Betas seemed like a complete mystery to most Alphas and Omegas, the latter were just as enigmatic to the former. “I don’t know how to tell you,” she admitted.

“Just say it plain.”

“I already did. Our villain…and Voigt…”

“Mates?”

She shrugged. “Not yet likely. But you ain’t never smelled like I smelled. I know good scents.” She tapped her nose. “And them’s got scents that just…go together.”

Jack gave her a lazy grin. “You’re superstitious. I knew you believed in spirits but ol’ wives’ tales, Belle? Truemates?”

“I’ve smelled truemates, Jack. They ain’t fiction.” She tossed a small errant twig into the fire. “They don’t even know it, most like. That fool is out to get money just like we are and that poor boy is stuck in the middle of it scared witless. He’s got 'imself right into a stress heat 'cause of it and o'course we’re gonna have to take 'im back to Schulze and hope the Alpha’s too dumb to notice he ain’t pure.”

Jack snorted. “Boy ain’t been pure since he came to Schulze. What’s another Alpha on top o’ all that?”

“He said he didn’t want done to 'im no harm. Fuckin’ a boy is harm.”

“If there ain’t a mark then there ain’t a mark,” Jack dismissed, waving his hand in the air. “Even if there is a mark, we didn’t put it on 'im.”

“I don’t think Schulze sees it that way. I told you before and I’ll tell you again, Jack. Rich men don’t stay rich by payin’ what they owe. If we’re gonna find this boy it has to be sooner than later. If they figure out what’s what with each other, there’ll be a mark on 'is neck no doubt and we’ll be damned to Hell to rip 'em apart.” She picked up another small twig and broke it in half before she threw both in the fire. “That boy been beat, you know.”

Jack’s gaze pinpointed on her. “What?”

“He’s been beaten. That German is a nasty Alpha.”

“Voigt’s his favorite, Belle. He brought him all the way out here to keep him with him…he’s beautiful, dressed like a prince, clean and pampered. He sleeps in silk sheets and drinks exotic wines…how the hell did you come to that conclusion?”

She shook her head. “Some things don’t wash out of a boy. It’s that painting. I think I put my finger on it. He’s angry. He’s afraid. It’s in the eyes.”

“You got that all from the painting?” Jack’s voice was incredulous and the tone set an edge in Izz’s stomach.

“You don’t gotta believe me. But you can’t deny that Alpha’s a beast inside.”

“I won’t deny it.” He closed his eyes and breathed in and out for a few moments, letting a silence stretch out between them while Izz kept her eyes on the dimming fire. Before long, he mused softly, “I thought I heard somethin’ about having a girl’s mouth on me earlier tonight.”

Izz frowned at him but he still had his eyes closed. “You’re a right son of a bitch sometimes.”

He laughed. “You still love me.”

“O’course I still love you, honey. But you ain’t gonna drive me to distraction so easy. I know it ain’t nice to think about but it hit me hard. S’why I couldn’t just put holes in ‘im right away. Their scents just…made sense.” She leaned over him, casually unfastening his jeans while he bent his legs at the knees and spread his thighs. “You sure you feel good enough for this? Might put some throb in your shoulder.”

“Darlin’, there ain’t nothin’ that would keep me from your lips.” He was resting with his eyes still closed, a queer little smile across his face while he clearly waited for her to touch him.

She released him into the cool evening air and stroked him a little bit in her hand while he gave a toothy smile. The smug Beta, she thought wryly as she adjusted to sit between his legs, bending over and taking him to her mouth with every bit of relish she savored for such intimate moments. Izz was rather good at this–but only when it came to Jack. She knew every inch of him that he liked to have touched and especially along his more sensitive organs. Her tongue swept him and searched him and knew him well enough that he soon had taken her hair in his fingers, threading it between them and holding her firm but tenderly.

“Jack,” she murmured after having left him for a moment, gripping him in the ring of her fingers and stroking him lazily as he stood at full attention.

“Alpha?” he asked.

She kissed under the head of him, along the sensitive little ridge of him between the head and the shaft. “I love you, my mate.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, squeezing her hair in his fingers and stroking along her temple with his thumb. “I love you, Belle. More than anything.”

She swallowed him again, passion searing through her blood as she worked him and sucked him, teasing him with her lashing tongue until his breath was thick with his lust and his shudders signified that his peak was at hand. God, Izz loved to give him pleasure. She loved to see his handsome features pinch with orgasm and she couldn’t get enough of his vulnerability to her–how he gave himself to her and how he somehow took her with equal vigor. She brought him to his climax, gulping down the spend he emitted with his hard sigh.

“Belle…” he breathed. “We need to find that Omega.”

“I know, honey.” She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and then leaned over to kiss him. “How’s your shoulder feel, partner?”

“Feels like it’s got a damn hole in it.”

Izz cuddled up to him, sharing her heat with him and pulling him close, burying her nose in his throat. She urged him to sleep and kissed the side of his mouth, drifting off with him in the cool night air. _We have to find the Omega…for the farm. But at what cost to the little one? What cost to our souls?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! It wasn't Izz who got shot--it was Jack! :0 Poor Jack. A blow job will make him feel better...maybe.


	8. Chapter 8

Was there no justice on this Earth? Was there no mercy? Wolf was vaguely aware that he was suspended in two great Alpha arms, held with his body beneath and his head just barely above the cool water of the pool. Despite the cold, he did not shiver and every bit of himself that was held above the surface seemed too-warm and only the gentle taps of a light rain over that exposed flesh gave him any comfort. He breathed the Alpha scent close to him, sipping it in shallow breaths. His body ached to be held closer. How long had it been since their first coupling? He had, still, many hours to suffer and he knew he was far further from sanity as he had been before—how could he get a bite if he could not even rein in his own mind?

His arm felt too heavy as he brought it up, breaking the surface of the water to touch at the Alpha’s chest, dusted with damp hair and thudding with a strong heart.

“Alpha…”

He didn’t respond. He merely peered down at Wolf with heavy-lidded eyes filled with something like regret. A strange sadness that had translated into a vigil here over him, holding his body in the pool.

“_Vero…_” His name. God, his _name_. It came from Wolf’s mouth, spilling out as though he were made to speak it. His scent even here in the light rain and in the fresh spring was spiced and alluring. It wasn’t like Herr Schulze. It wasn’t frightening and weird and it certainly did not spark terror in Wolf’s gut the way he thought it might. It was calming and enticing. It made Wolf want to hold the man as close as he could—it made him wish that things were much different than they were.

He was not prone to fantasy. He was not prone to thinking of how he _wished _things had gone. Imagination was an aspect of a man that Wolf was unfamiliar with…but here? Now? His mind was lost to lazy daydreams of rolling green hills in a vast open land peppered with wildflowers. He felt hazy and his heart was squeezing in his chest. All he wished was to be held like this forever—as though this single moment could have been heaven itself. Vero. _Vero_. He didn’t know this man and yet through scent alone he _knew him._

Wolf pressed his hand flat on the Alpha’s chest to feel the thud of his heartbeat, his scent powerful and gripping.

_Sweet maple sap in slow drips from bare branches. The first fallen leaves of autumn and the crisp spice of organic decay—a transition. The dryness of late summer grass and the thunder of hooves over the hills from wild mustangs who ran together, chasing the wind. Wood smoke and the sticky texture of pine burning outside on a chilly morning when the dew had hardened into a delicate frost over the edges of red and yellow leaves. Vero. Misting rain and the moisture that pooled over the brim of an outlaw’s hat, dripping with the slightest movement over the horn of his saddle. Rough, unshaven whiskers in a tender, arousing kiss. Freedom. The whip of a horse’s tail. Sunrise on the prairies. The howl of coyotes. Vero. Vero. Vero._

He felt so very naked, wishing somehow that this freedom he could smell could be within his grasp. But that freedom was the man who held him and nothing less. How could he have fallen so far so quickly? How could he have suddenly compromised his own goal? His heat was supposed to be a ploy for a bite—not a trap that he himself should fall within!

“Help…” he tried, one of his few English words he could manage. “Help…”

The outlaw responded with his low but powerful tone that vibrated in Wolf’s heart, the sadness within it lending him to the idea that perhaps the Alpha was not to have him again. But the Omega could not even fathom it.

“Ffff…” he tried. “Ffff…”

Vero leaned, pressing his lips against Wolf’s forehead in a sort of reverie, whispering against his hairline.

“Fffffuck. Fuck me.”

The outlaw burst out with a laugh that quickly tapered into an amused chuckle. Clearly the man was not expecting a phrase so blunt. His handsome, unshaven face was spread into a deep grin and he slowly moved, raising Wolf from the water and carrying him to shore. When he settled the Omega down upon the bedroll in the alcove, he let him take long draws from his water skin.

This thirst was not the only to burn within his soul and so Wolf pushed the skin from his mouth and pulled himself up to press his lips against his outlaw’s. _His_. _His outlaw_. He pulled at Vero’s bare shoulders, scrambling with too-heavy limbs to bring the Alpha between his thighs, happier now that he could face the man as he was speared upon his girthy shaft. He breathed hard, urging the man to take him, to push inside and have him the way that was natural for an Alpha and an Omega.

It was novel, the thought. That he should wish for this rather than his normal reaction—that was, to shy from it. Heats had become a terror for him and now? Now, when he should have been horrified at the thought of a stranger opening his body and using him for pleasure…he was exhilarated by it. That it was _this _Alpha, he thought wildly. That it was Vero—he wanted this. He wanted to feel as though this man could truly give him freedom and that within that freedom, he did not have to be so alone.

Why? Why did he think this? He did not have the presence of mind to consider it. He would have to return to the thoughts later. There was no time for such an examination. Not when he was frantically mewling and whining in a desperate plea to his Alpha to enter him. Calmly and slowly or with a rough savagery, he didn’t care. All he wished for was _Vero’s_ knot and no one else’s.

“Ffff! Fuck! Fuck me! Alpha! _Bitte!_”

Vero touched him with lulling strokes over his hair and his face, trailing his hands down to Wolf’s shoulders and arms, urging him to be still. He murmured nonsensical words and moved those big hands down to the Omega’s thighs to hold him open and keep him still.

Slick poured out of him, gushing in short waves and smelling musty in its sweetness. He was still heaving his breaths in and out, his head tossed to bare his throat in clear submission. It was enough. He felt the blunt end of Vero at his bottom and keened softly, pleading for the gentle push that would fill him and satisfy him for a least a few hours. It was late in the morning, the sun was hidden by cloud and yet the brightness around him suddenly was too much and so he had to close his eyes, focusing narrowly on the pleasure of being opened and owned by Vero’s body.

“_Omega…_” Vero groaned as he entered slowly, taking his time to make certain that every inch of him could be felt sliding deep within Wolf’s tight passage. His knot was swelled and firm but Wolf was well-practiced in taking knots and his copious slick made it even easier for it to ease inside him, his body relaxing around the bulky weight of it. Vero sighed hard through his nose as he was fully rooted within and moved shallowly, rocking that knot back and forth until Wolf was overcome by the sparkles of stars behind the lids of his closed eyes, his mouth thrown open in gasping cries. The Alpha was generous and giving, pausing long enough in his motions to spoil Wolf with possessive kisses, his big hands roving over his body, spreading his rutting Alpha scent over his flesh to claim him—but claim him, he did not. Even when he was breaching the limits of his pleasure, giving out desperate groans as he filled Wolf with his seed, Vero did not bite him, choosing instead to grind his teeth and hiss his breath inward. He brought Wolf to peak with another few rough thrusts but this moment, too, was wasted.

Wolf searched for him, grasping at his neck and pulling at him to be held. “_Bitte. Alpha…Mein Alpha._” He wanted nothing more than to stay like this forever, Vero between his legs and a comfortable knot inside him. Warm, pliant, and sated, he felt as though he could sleep for a thousand years but he opened his eyes instead, finally taking a good, long look at the man he wanted to give him freedom. Dark blonde with piercing ice blue eyes, Vero was _such_ an Alpha. He was strong with hard muscles just under his sun-bronzed flesh. His hair was messy and wet with rain and sweat, darkened by the dampness and the overcast skies. 

Schulze was stout and thick with a short, fat cock and a cruel demeanor while Vero was tall, broad and well-muscled. With less time in the saddle and a more consistent diet, Vero could have had the presence of a vicious bear and no doubt he perhaps could have gained the temperament of one as well should he have reason to. But with Wolf, he was kind and sweet, touching him in sweeping brushes to keep him grounded while they remained tied together. His eyes, though icy in their color, were warm and expressive, a darkness just barely reaching them that Wolf recognized easily.

He wasn’t supposed to do this. He was doing something he thought was wrong. But how could it be wrong, Wolf thought. How could something so wonderful, that felt so good be wrong? His foggy mind reminded himself that a man shouldn’t defile something he meant to give back—but what was the sense in that? Wolf was already clearly ruined a long, long time ago. What was one more? What was a thousand more knots? He frowned at himself, ripping his eyes away from Vero’s. He didn’t want any more knots…he’d thought before that he wanted _not a single one more._ But that was before he had gotten a taste of this outlaw’s body and the way it made him feel when he was inside to the hilt.

“_Vero…_” he whined softly. _“Ich will dich.”_ He shifted his legs to rub against Vero’s sides, cradling him the way Schulze liked to be cradled. He supposed that it was perhaps an Alpha’s greatest pleasure to be held like this, shown that they were powerful and virile by a receptive lover. Wolf was always pretending when it came to the German. He couldn’t pretend now. Not when he was drunk on a man’s scent the way he’d never experienced before. He wanted this masculine brute of an outlaw and he wanted him selfishly—to be his and his alone. Should Wolf have possessed the bite to claim, he would have done so now without regret.

As the afternoon came over them, Vero grew restless, mating with him twice more as the warmth of the day came over them and feeding him safki and jerky though all Wolf could think about was sex. It was early evening when Vero seemed intent to move camp but the Omega could not think of it, mewling again his desire and swinging a thigh over the Alpha to straddle him as he sat looking at his clothes as though he might want to put them on.

“_Mmm,_” he moaned, pressing open-mouthed sensual kisses over Vero’s whiskered jaw, pressing against his face until he had successfully claimed his lips and distracted him. “_Keep. Keep. Keep now._”

“_Rrmmh…_” Vero protested but clearly the man wanted him. His arms came around Wolf’s body, holding him tightly again with all indication that he would give the boy what he wished—another good, long fucking. There was something electric in his scent, sparking within it like some poorly concealed secret—a determination. Vero’s actions were measured and deliberate as he took Wolf’s hips and guided him until he was impaled by his thick member, sitting in his lap and writhing for that blistering friction. The Alpha moved him, sliding him up and down before he leaned back and bucked up into him, slapping his knot against the rim of him in an erotic pattern of sounds that had him giving out soft cries of pleasure.

When Vero finally chose to ease the knot inside, Wolf let his jaw dip open, allowing himself to revel in the sensation of being opened fully. Once inside, Vero was not yet satisfied and, with a glint of mischief in his clear blue eyes, he held Wolf by the waist and then tested the seal, pulling back in a brutal experiment.

“_Uhn?_” Wolf moaned with his confusion, his hands coming out to grip at Vero’s shoulders. The outlaw was looking between them, his big hand brushing over the Omega’s sensitive manhood before he tenderly lifted his sac and peered down where they where sealed together. “_Mmmhnnn!_” he tried, squeezing at Vero’s shoulders again.

The man was undaunted and, with a curious little smile and one brow quirked upward, he braced both of his hands under Wolf’s rump and very slowly pulled him up as though seeking to dislodge him. The tight ring of his muscles strained against the fully-swelled knot of a grown Alpha and the pressure mounted.

“_Ahhhn!_” he cried out, the pleasure mingling with a slight sting of pain as the knot slowly eased out of him again, opening him up to escape the hold he had upon the Alpha’s shaft. His dug his nails into Vero’s back, holding him tight as the rest of the Alpha popped out of him, leaving him unsated and gaping, his entrance weeping slick and begging again for an Alpha. “_Vero…Vero…_” He had been teased enough in his life to know when he was being teased again and though no Alpha had done something like this before, it was only too clear to know why one would try—he was an easy knot, it wouldn’t be difficult to breach him again…and again…

That is just what the Alpha did, slowly easing him down again and pushing his knot inside before he pulled Wolf up in much the same manner, popping his knot out though this time staying with his cock sheathed. He muttered something and his tone was lustful but playful as well, his scratching kisses along Wolf’s jaw sending sparking thrills down to his little member. He pushed up inside and pulled the boy off of himself at least three more times, finally laying Wolf down on the soft bedroll beneath him to rut him to completion. His hips jerked hard back and forth, slamming deeply inside him while his whiskers scraped at the exposed flesh of Wolf’s neck.

“_Uhn! Auugh! Ahnn! Alpha! Keep! Keep me! Bitte!_” He felt his climax rushing to the fore as tears seeped from his eyes, wetting his lashes and his cheeks while he held his Alpha, burying his fingers in Vero’s still-damp hair. “_Bitte. Bitte. Bitte…_” he wept, gasping as his body convulsed with his orgasm and the burn of Vero’s teeth overwhelmed him.

_Oh God. Alpha… _A wash of _rightness_ surged through him and he gripped Vero’s hair hard in his fist, his breaths stuttering in the wake of it all. As he shook mightily, the Alpha rose up and looked down at him, blood on his lips and an odd sureness in his eyes.

That sureness only lasted a moment, the click of a revolver behind his head erasing it completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yike.


	9. Chapter 9

Sometimes, when Izz was angry enough, she had to force herself to breath in and out through her nose in deep, sucking breaths. She was angry enough now. That or she was conflicted enough now. She’d allowed him to dress and then tied him tight with a length of rope and laid him on his stomach over the back of her horse. He’d struggled a bit at the first but had since ceased, recognizing it as a futile endeavor. The boy was riding with Jack, between the Beta’s legs and caged by his arms. He gave no struggle, his heat scent fading as they road down the mountains toward town. She wanted to hit this Alpha called Vero. She wanted to kill him, in all honesty. But they needed him alive so he could explain to Schulze what he’d done and why he’d done it—it was all they could do now.

_But it isn’t. It isn’t all we can do now. We could set these two free into the wilderness and cut our losses._

It was stupid and she knew it. They needed the money. Jack would never let her just dump these two off into nowhere. Not just on the weight of whatever was teeming in her stomach. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’d been wrong about everything. Damn, she hoped she was. She hoped they’d come into Schulze’s car and walk out of it knowin’ he was a forgiving man who paid bounty hunters for their trouble and let his little Omega share his bed like nothing had happened. She hoped that any and all of her misgivings could be proven false.

But she knew they couldn’t be. And she knew Vero and Wolf belonged together.

She didn’t have to ask him. She wasn’t curious. She knew they were compatible mates. Any Alpha could have figured out that they were meant to be. That Vero was strong enough against the draw of him that he could have lasted so long without claiming was the only thing that tickled her thoughts. Even a ransom that high could not stop most Alphas who had found their truemate, rare as it was.

Most people thought truemates to be a legend and maybe it was prudent to think so. But Izz knew better.

She glanced back at Vero who’d hung his head, letting himself jostle with Marble’s movements. “Alpha,” she said abruptly. He didn’t move. “Did you really think you would have your ransom?”

He didn’t reply but his scent shifted and altered toward a shade or two of regret and frustration.

“Ah. I see. You gave up the idea of a ransom. You thought that you might escape your outlawin’ somehow without any money to do it and you’d disappear into the sunset with this Omega you found so attractive. I see.”

His scent was enough of an answer, the waves of strengthening frustration and shame like a heavy, spiced fog that was picked up by a soft breeze. He didn’t have the will to answer her. Likely, the man didn’t have answers that sounded good enough to him to reply. Of course he wouldn’t…he likely thought the idea of truemates to be as much a farce as Jack did.

Izz moved her eyes to Wolf where he sat nestled with his back against the Beta’s chest. He appeared in a sort of daze, his eyes straight ahead and glazed over, his expression blank and unseeing. He had stopped bleeding but the wound was still fresh and angry, a clear bondmark that the two hunters were going to have to contend with when it came to Schulze’s caveat that he remain _unharmed._ But that was why they had Vero.

“Alpha,” she addressed him again, “when we return to Schulze, you are going to tell him that the bondmark upon his Omega is yours. You will tell him exactly whatever it is that he wishes to know and you will do it without struggle or lying. If you attempt to lie, know that I will be cutting off parts of you…beginning with your nose. Then maybe your ears. Then maybe your miserable cock.”

She didn’t expect an answer and wasn’t disappointed when she didn’t get one, instead merely taking in more deep, sucking breaths through her nose. She would quell whatever anxiety plagued her and whatever leftover anger at the actions of a misguided Alpha. She would handle whatever life threw at her and Jack and eventually she would get that damned farm out from under the cloud of debt it was under. She and Jack and his siblings could be safe and out of harm’s way—she would never have to see him in pain again.

By the time they made it to town, Wolf’s heat scent was completely gone and the light rain that had pattered over the damp ground had come to an end, leaving the leaves on the trees around them shining in the gray light. When she’d dismounted before the rail car and Jack was in the process, Wolf kicked out, catching Jack in the jaw.

“Hey!” she barked. He made the attempt to jump from the saddle but Izz was quick, snapping out her hand and catching him at the collar of his shirt and ripping the delicate material when she hauled him back. “You alright, Jack?”

The Beta was rubbing at his face, his mild scent sticky. “Yeah…god…what the hell’s got him in such a tizzy?”

“I told you,” Izz muttered, “He’s been beat.”

The little German spouted off a rich set of screaming jumbles of words that must have been curses as he struggled in Izz’s grip, his body writhing suddenly in his desperate attempt to escape.

_“Nein! Nein! Ich werde deinen Hals ausreißen, du Hund!”_

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, lifting him up to keep his kicking legs from making contact with her. “Jack, if you didn’t have a bum shoulder…”

“What, you can’t carry both?”

“If he was out cold, I could.”

Vero’s growl came from Marble’s back, his struggle sudden, “If you harm him, I’ll _kill you_, Alpha!”

“You and Schulze both, no doubt,” she mused, contemplating shaking the boy anyway until he quit his struggle. Instead, she maneuvered him into one arm and then came to Vero, hefting him over her shoulder with a bit of trouble while the Omega still struggled, his boots too far up off the ground to do much but kick and scream. With some difficulty, she waited with them until Jack had knocked upon the rail car door and they were admitted by a brawny Alpha bodyguard who eyed them with clear apprehension.

Schulze was tying the sash of his robe together when they entered, padding in his bare feet toward them with a heinous gleam in his eyes. “Good, good,” he muttered as Izz dropped Vero on the fine carpet and gave him a good kick to his ribs. “And my Wolf, my darling…”

_“Ich werde dich töten, während du schläfst, ekelhaftes Insekt!” _He kicked and writhed, his eyes clearly filled with unhinged malice toward the much older Alpha who studied him in Izz’s arms. “_Hnnngh! Help! Help me! Vero!_”

“What is…” Schulze came nearer to him, “What is…_that_…”

Jack stepped forward. “No harm came to him from us. That’s what we could promise you. We’ve brought him back to you and we’ve done naught to him.”

In an instant, his scent grew bitter and infuriated. He glanced between the two mercenaries while his lips trembled. “I told you that he must come to me undamaged. What part of that did you not comprehend?!”

Izz felt a burn in her chest. “Alpha, there is nothing we can do about what a man does your Omega. We can’t control what other men do. We’ve brought you the outlaw responsible and that’s more than what we were asked. Frankly, we’ve done everything you asked us to and—”

“_I beg to differ!_” he yelled, spittle flying from between his lips. His face was reddening quickly, fading into a purple hue. “_I asked that he be unharmed!_”

Jack glanced at Izz, at a loss.

“Alpha,” she replied in a deep and no-nonsense tone, “We’ve done what we were capable of doin’. If he ain’t to your likin’, that’s got nothin’ to do with us. You can talk to Vero about what’s been done to your Omega. You can do whatever it is that you want with ‘im now, but that’s got fuck all to do with us. Frankly, I’d like to be paid for what I’ve done for ya, and then you won’t have to see hide nor hair of us for the rest of your damned life if yah don’t want to.” She set Wolf down and gave him a little shove toward Vero so that he tripped over the Alpha on the floor and tumbled down to the carpet with him. The boy immediately got to his feet and backed into the clear corner by the bed, cowering as he held his torn shirt to his chest, his eyes filled with a hard fear and fixed on Schulze. “Now how about you pay us, Alpha?”

“I don’t see why I should pay you for a botched attempt!” he spat back at her, his voice trembling and mad.

“Attempt? Can you not see him there, Alpha? Vero, tell him.” Izz asked, her patience wearing thin.

Vero raised up his eyes to her, clear contempt boiling within him as he kept his mouth shut.

“Get out. Get out! _Get out!_” he screamed, throwing a heavy pewter paperweight across the room and missing Izz completely.

“You don’t wanna do this, Alpha,” Izz rumbled with threat, putting out a hand. They needed this money. If for nothing else, they needed this money to pay the doctor enough to treat Jack’s shoulder should something go wrong. She saw the bodyguard moving toward her, putting out his hand to grasp at her elbow. “Mr. Schulze, you can’t do this. We had a deal.” Her _Alpha_ voice was striking in the small chamber. “_Vero! Tell him._”

“_Get them out of here!_” the German screamed.

She felt the grip of a heavy hand and for a tense and mad moment, she thought about pulling out her gun and blowing the man away. The scene burned into her mind’s eye: Schulze rounding upon Wolf who cowered and shivered in the corner—at last under his control and at his mercy again. Would he beat him? Would he kill him? The thought wasn’t anything she was prepared to entertain. She had delivered an Omega to his doom and she was without even the slightest iota of comfort for having done it. Vero lay upon the floor, helpless to the scene and unable to get away and she did not envy him in the slightest when she and Jack were tossed out onto the gravel.

They stood about uselessly, looking at each other as men ran about them shouting in German. Jack was the first to speak.

“You were right, Izz. About all of it.” He sighed through his nose, his good hand lightly against his wounded shoulder. “A rich man…”

She wished she hadn’t been right. She wished she could tear that letter out of Jack’s satchel and get rid of it. Every dream they’d had at the beginning of this endeavor seemed foolish and all they had now was another scar on Jack’s body and a bad taste in her mouth. “Let’s get a drink, Jack.”

“I don’t much feel like drinkin’,” he told her, his voice soft and forlorn.

There was a heavy hum in the air and the two of them looked upward down the rail line to where the engine sat, huge and black upon the track. Izz moved her eyes back to Jack and nodded a bit. “He’s leaving. He’s takin’ the train and he’s leaving.”

“I guess that’s the end of it.”

“Like hell it is.” She mounted Marble and waited until Jack mounted Hornet, pulling a rolled cigarette out of her shirt pocket and lighting it while Jack did the same and they watched the men around them scramble to ready the train. “Get a drink with me, Beta. We’re gonna get our money.”

He stared at her incredulously but said nothing until they were riding together to the saloon. “You want to…_rob a train?_ With just the two of us? Are you mad, Alpha? Even if I didn’t have a bum shoulder, that would be absolutely insane. We’d need a whole team if we were to even have a chance.”

“Man’s got a safe behind that portrait. We either save that farm or we die tryin’, Jack.” She swallowed, leading him into the saloon and raising up a hand to order two drinks from the bartender. The place was raucous tonight and she was glad of it. Nobody would overhear them if they spoke low. “I know outlawin’ isn’t in your blood but you don’t hire a set of mercs like us if you think we’re good people. He’s got it comin’.”

“And how do you think we’re gonna get that safe? I just told you, it’s crazy talk.”

“I think I got about six sticks o’ dynamite in my pack that say we can do whatever we damned well want to.”

“Izz, I can’t do hardly enough to make this happen. I…I don’t know if I can do something like this anyway. I don’t know if I have it in me.” His brows were worried and she could tell he wasn’t fully on board. It was tough to consider…after all, they weren’t supposed to be bad people. They weren’t supposed to be outlaws. They’d spent a good amount of their lives together bringing in those who would do wrong and now?

“Jack, we just gave a young boy back to an Alpha who beats him. We’ve done a wrong here. How old do you think he was when Schulze first slammed a knot into him? Eighteen? Sixteen? Fourteen?”

Jack jerked in his seat, further startling when a busty Beta waitress came and set down their drinks. He looked sweaty and unsettled, his scent sour and odd. “Belle, you’ve been right about a lot o’ this. But that was where the money was…we can’t be blamed for…”

“Oh yes we can. We chose to bring a boy back to a man who rapes him and abuses him. Iffin’ yer askin’ me, Vero’s the real hero in all this. Mayhap Schulze will let the boy go after all this. Mayhap Vero’s just martyred himself for that boy’s life.”

“Or mayhap Schulze kills them both,” Jack murmured, staring at his beer without touching it.

“Did you think about that before now?”

“Well…no…he loves Wolf…doesn’t he?”

Izz let her mouth flatten. “I love you. Do I beat you?”

Jack’s brows were even tighter together. “Belle, a man has different ways of…” He gritted his teeth, closing his eyes and reconsidering his words. “He…he _values_ Wolf. He considers him a…a prize.”

“And now that he’s ruined, there is no value. He might just kill 'im.”

“Then you think we should save 'im.”

“I think we’ve done something we ought not be proud of. We might not be able to make it right, Beta. The time for that might be long past. But we can fix what we can and do our best to let ourselves sleep at night. Not to mention, we best save that farm.”

“Or die tryin…” Jack agreed, finally moving to drink from his glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's Christmas, I'll let you guys have a double update. How's that sound?


	10. Chapter 10

Wolf couldn’t understand any of what they were saying to each other. Schulze had, for a long time, known plenty of English but Wolf had never been given the opportunity to learn. At first, he’d thought it simply because the man could not be bothered with teaching him but now, he knew. He’d known for a little while, he supposed. It was designed that way–so that he couldn’t escape. So that he would forever be dependent upon Schulze for everything. This was why he never took English-speaking lovers and kept only Wolf with him in America. Power. Control.

Vero was biting in his replies, spitting out vitriol that Wolf couldn’t interpret. The two men were oscillating between venomous, hissing replies and full-on shouting and Wolf couldn’t help but feel the weighty arms of fear wrapping around him and keeping him huddled and cowering in the corner of the car. He couldn’t remember how many times he had been caught here, tucked into this very corner to wait for the Alpha to come to him and wrench him up by his arm and throw him onto the bed. He couldn’t remember how many times he had kicked and screamed and struggled uselessly against the strength of an Alpha, begging not to be used.

It would happen again. It would happen right now in front of Vero and he would again be useless to stop it. He didn’t want to see Schulze’s unhinged expression when he turned about and so he closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands.

Everything had gone straight to hell. He supposed he should have known that it would happen like this. That he could never get away from this man who had taken him and then taken everything from him. He supposed that it was only right that he should never be able to get away from the man who owned him. He’d finally gotten what he’d wanted–a bite–and even that wasn’t enough.

The wound on his neck throbbed a small bit and he gave out a little sob. Vero. A means to an end, but now? He almost wanted to peek through his fingers to see him. Handsome, his whiskers just a little too long from being out in the wilds and his life much too rough for a pretty Omega like Wolf. He was a bad man. An outlaw. Still, Wolf thought to himself with his eyes still covered, he was Wolf’s Alpha now.

What was this odd feeling? He had never had such a bizarre notion before. That was not quite right, he corrected himself. He had thought such a thing before–during his heat. Those curious moments that were so unlike previous heats. He had never felt like he had when Vero held him. He had thought that his forced heat was to be another harrowing journey into suffering and regret…but that had not happened. There was something in Vero’s scent and in his touch that had called to him, that had given him a freedom he had never known before.

Tears made his palms slick over his face and he sobbed as the Alphas continued to yell back and forth. All he had ever wanted was to be free. But freedom now meant something different than it had before.

There was a pause, the weight of it heavy in his ears. Chancing a look, he peeped through his fingers to find Schulze had turned around and was now gazing at him with an unrestrained madness in his eyes. His face was still mottled, the red blotches marring his flesh on his cheeks and even his throat where it blooms in ugly flowers under his robe. “What did you think was going to happen, Wolfgang? What did you think you were going to accomplish? Did you think you would get away? You’ve failed before and you’ve failed again. But have you?”

He was trembling in his fear, shaking like a leaf. His throat was shut and he couldn’t respond. After everything–after how brave he always told himself he was, he still cowered before this Alpha. All the days and nights in which he thought himself better than this, in which he thought himself finally able to defeat the dragon that held him captive–he was still here. He was still the young little boy who’d been bought and sold for pleasure. The frightened Omega who shivered in corners and wept bitterly into his hands. All the thoughts of how he might kill this man and now, as always, he had no strength with which to do it.

“Maybe you haven’t failed after all.” The Alpha swayed on his feet with the movement of the train, the engine picking up speed as it chugged along the tracks. The familiar vibrations of the rails beneath them were grating against Wolf’s senses. “Maybe you’ve finally gotten yourself out of my hands. Was it so bad for you, Omega? Was it so terrible for you here with me that you would kill this man to get away?”

Before he could think, he sobbed. “_Yes!_” A bloom of anger spread in his heart but withered against his fear.

“And what about yourself? Would you kill yourself?”

He stared up at him, helpless and frozen, his breaths shallow and uneven as his terror began to overwhelm him in sharp tingles over his skin.

Schulze came to him, swooping in to grasp at his clothes, yanking him up by his shirt to shake him hard, snapping his head back and forth. “_Would you kill yourself, Wolfgang?! Would you be so desperate to get away that you would die for it?!”_

“_Stop! Please! Please stop!_” he cried as he was shaken. But Schulze had never listened to his begging sobs before. He had never once taken Wolf’s words and considered them even for a moment. So Wolf was rattled, shaken until he couldn’t stand it anymore and his knees buckled. Still, the Alpha shook his limp body savagely.

“_You dirty little whoreson. I bet you moaned for him, pleaded with him to fuck you like the disgusting Omega you are. I bet you teased him and begged him to claim you._” He threw him casually as if he were nothing more than a doll at the closed door to the car, the sound of his body striking it hollow and ominous. Vero yelled something and Schulze fired back in English, kicking the prone Alpha in the stomach as he did so. It took him only a step or two to find Wolf again with rough hands and he lifted him again by his torn shirt, his voice low and soft. “_You’ll get what you wanted, Omega. You’ll die for freedom._” With his free hand, he unlatched the door and slid it open along its track, revealing the countryside as it moved along outside, the warm air rushing in and disturbing his papers.

“_No! No! No!_” Wolf screamed. The memory of being gripped by his hair, his toes just barely holding onto the edge of the floor rushed back to him. He had been held to the edge before, naked and convinced that he would die. The same thunderous panic gripped him now as Schulze took him by his clothes and held him with his back toward the open door, shaking him to keep his eyes forward instead of peering back toward his doom.

“No, little Wolf,” he cooed, “I don’t want you to look into the abyss. I want your last view to be of _me_. I want you to remember as you wheeze your last wretched breath that it was what you did to me that brought you your suffering.”

He could scarce breathe. He could scarce remember a moment where he felt such horror in the chambers of his heart. There had never been a madness like this in the German Alpha’s eyes or in the curve of his mouth. He was a cruel, terrible man. Worse than any outlaw in the West. Wolf supposed that he must have known that it would end this way. Still, faced with eternity, he wasn’t ready. He weakly grasped at Schulze’s hands, unable to even beg for his life in the end. The last word he spoke to the man who would kill him was a whispering breath, lost perhaps in the rush of the wind.

“_Vero…_”

It felt as though he were weightless for longer than the few seconds he was in the air. As if time slowed as soon as his feet had disconnected with the rail car. It was this weightlessness that he wished–oh god he wished–could last forever. It was the soft moment of calm before the crashing brutality of the earth came to him in sudden and callous ferocity. There were no trees to strike him but he rolled with ruthless momentum, his body tumbling like a ragdoll until it could move no more and he was left on his back, pain spreading throughout every bone and muscle, pounding through his nerves and flashing bright white in his mind. It was blinding and vicious, stealing his breath and leaving him unable to think beyond trying to suck in just one more sip of air.

_Help. Help me._

His lungs allowed just the smallest inch of oxygen as his mouth opened and gaped. He struggled for breath, unable to move for the pain while the birdsong twittered around him and small fluffy clouds floated through the clear evening sky. Each pulling of his lungs was a small bit more successful than the last and finally, he could feel his fingers again, his hands gently probing at the damp grass around him, digging into the soft soil beneath.

He lay there for a long time, the chugging of the train receding toward the swerving mountain tracks as he breathed and wallowed in every painful moment. If only he could have been brave. If only he could have done more. If only he could have saved Vero.

Wolf’s mind was blank suddenly and there was nothing to fill it save the hard ringing in his ears. He wanted to save Vero. He wanted his Alpha to be alright. The man didn’t deserve this. Well, Wolf thought again, maybe he did. But for what had happened last few days, the man was blameless. He had inadvertently saved Wolf’s life by kidnapping him and he had, in the end, been weak to the draw of an Omega’s heat. He had played into the boy’s hands and he’d been the perfect mark to do so. For that, he was foolish. Though most Alphas were, Wolf thought as the moon began to rise over the prairies.

He tried to move his body, wincing at the pain in his back and his shoulders. His ribs ached sharply and he slowly moved an arm to prod at them with tender touches. He’d likely broken more than one. It hurt to breathe. Some time passed before he was able to very gradually ease himself into a sitting position and when he was finally there, he let himself have a few small sobs. Weeping too heavily would have been far to agonizing. He was bleeding from cuts over the whole of his body, a jagged scrape over his forehead sending a fair amount of blood into his hair and when he sat up, into his eye. He wiped at it, smearing it into the tears on his cheeks and the dirt that had smudged him.

“Mmmm…” he hummed unevenly as he took stock of himself. He was alive. He was alive. He was as banged up as he could imagine ever being but he was alive and he was sure that if he picked up right now and he limped his way to a town, he could stay that way. He could stay alive and alone forever. He could finally be free.

_Free. _

It didn’t seem to have the same ring to it as it did before. He turned his head in the direction the train had gone and thought about Vero, his heart squeezing. He wanted that freedom. He wanted the kind of freedom that smelled like the thunder of wild horses and the rub of the saddle. He wanted the kind of freedom that let him have an outlaw who touched him sweetly and held him with a reverie that only a gentle Alpha could provide. He didn’t want to look like a prince–he wanted to be treated like one.

Was it so wrong to wish for love in a hard land like this?

_No. _Wolf shook with his pain as he made to stand up, wincing at the tenderness of one of his ankles. It wasn’t wrong to wish. It was only wrong to wish and not _fight_. He breathed in and out, testing his lungs as he looked around the seemingly empty prairie and held his tattered shirt. It almost wasn’t worth having on anymore. As his eyes adjusted to the moonlight, he found a wisping plume of woodsmoke rising from a tiny farmhouse not too far in the distance. _I am a brave Omega. I have courage inside me. I am alive and I will fight. I will fight. _He felt his bravery well up the way it could not before the German Alpha and he straightened himself, limping proudly through his pain. Blood from his cuts dotted the grasses around him as he walked and when he was finally at the threshold of the farm, he was exhausted from the trek. Still, he could not afford to tire. So he knocked.

The farmer and his wife were of a thin and concerned sort and at his broken English they stood, baffled until the man posed a question–in German.

“You’re from the _Vaterland_?”

Wolf’s mouth opened in shock. “Y-Yes. Please. You must help me…”

“Of course,” the Beta urged him inside, settling him on the edge of their large bed which sat off to the side of the tiny one-room farmhouse. “Of course, little one. We will bandage you up. How have you come to us this way?”

“_Herr Schulze_…I…I need to find a horse. I need to catch the train.”

“Darling,” the man’s wife crooned to him as she put water on to heat over their fire and fetched him clean bandages from their stores. “You cannot catch the train. You must heal. You are gravely injured.”

“He has…he has my Alpha. My Alpha is in danger. Please. I must have a horse. I must find him and save him.”

“It is a fool’s errand,” the man told him, dabbing at the wound on his head. “You should not risk it. You will get the both of you killed should you go. Please stay, little one. Do not throw yourself into the jaws of some beast.”

“Should I beg you for a horse, would you spare one for me? I will bring it back, I will repay you. I have nothing but my Alpha. I cannot bear to lose him.”

The Betas peered meaningfully at each other and then back to him, rubbing at his cheeks with a damp cloth to rid him of his blood, dirt, and tears. The man nodded solemnly. “If only for that I feel a kinship with you, little Omega. I will give you a horse…but you should not be killed…for I wish for her back.”

Wolf grasped the man’s face and kissed his cheeks, his heart soaring. “Please, I must go right away. I must find my Alpha and save him! I will promise to you anything.”

“Then promise me that you will do what you can to live and come back little one.”

“Yes,” he sobbed. “Yes, I will. Thank you, thank you, sir.”

He was cleaned and bandaged by the missus as the farmer sought to saddle his horse. The sitting was nearly the worst of it, as he could feel his body growing accustomed to the rest and his ankle become far more ornery when provoked. When the man returned, he stood too quickly and nearly pitched to the side when his ankle protested.

“Little one,” he implored, “please, reconsider. I have saddled Johanna if you must go, but you run to your death, Omega.”

“Then I will die,” he replied. Even despite the fear in his heart, he knew he did not lie when he said it. For Schulze, Wolf was dead. It was the moment of weightlessness between life and the crashing reality that was, perhaps, what brought him awake to the power within. For all the moments and thoughts that he had repeated over and over–_I am a brave Omega_–he now could know with certainty that he did not lie. Not to himself and not to these poor immigrant farmers. Should he be faced with the prospect of death, he would not run. Not anymore.

He mounted the dappled mare, Johanna and once again thanked the farmer and his wife before he urged the horse down the tracks to find his Alpha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone.


	11. Chapter 11

“You worthless Alphas. You think that merely by having presented as such you are deserving of the name.” Schulze’s words were frosted and heavy with malice as he stalked about the rail car, in his hand a long heavy cane he’d picked up from out of Vero’s range of sight. “Outlaws such as yourself should be put to death. Those men who would run about ruining lives, killing indiscriminately, and inconveniencing men like me.”

He almost couldn’t hear the man. His heart was aching. His whole body seemed to have gone limp and useless. How could he live now? Now that his Omega—that beautiful German spitfire—had been tossed to his death? There had been nothing Vero could have done. He certainly was worthless, he thought. After such a thing, he might as well be put to death for he would surely deserve it. Not for what Schulze proclaimed but for his inability to protect the Omega that he had bonded and loved. 

_Loved._ Yes, no doubt about that. He had loved him and loved him sweetly with every bone in his body and every fiber of his being. What else could it have been to have had such a desperate and creeping wish to save him? To have that fire in his bed every night and to know everything about this boy who wanted to be kept… What other emotion could it be that had torn his heart straight out of his body and sent it careening out of the rail car and into the depths of the abyss? His love, his Omega, was _dead_.

What else was there to live for now? He had known him for so little a time and it felt, still, as though his whole life had been in those frightened green eyes.

Schulze was still talking. “Wolf was a fine young boy. I did like him younger though it took me time to get him to where he was. Much training. You see, that will have to be done all over again. It was difficult. Little German boys have spirit. Far more spirit than the English boys or the American boys. There is something about them. Tenacity. It makes them struggle.” He shook his head as if mourning a great loss—though it could be nothing like Vero’s loss as his scent could not compete with the rotted musk that came from the Alpha upon the floor. The wind was still whirling about the room, the countryside racing by out the car door, obscuring Vero’s scent with that of the fresh prairie air. “You’ve hurt me, outlaw. You’ve hurt _him._ In fact, _you killed him_.”

Vero closed his eyes, unable to shut out the truth of his words.

“Had you not taken him…had you not bitten him…he would still live. He could never be with you. What had you been thinking?”

_What had I been thinking?_ He felt warm tears fill his eyes and seep from beneath his lashes, quietly slipping over the bridge of his nose and dripping onto the decorative Persian rug.

“Taking my little boy, my sweet Wolf…and _defiling_ him. You should have known him when he was a boy. When I purchased him.”

The outlaw squeezed his eyes even harder shut.

“He was small. So pure and perfect. Did you know he had not even seen another man’s cock before?”

Vero’s voice was weak and breathless. “…_stop_.” A heavy, painful strike descended over his leg and he grunted with the sudden hit, his eyes opening to the unsurprising sight of Schulze raising the cane again. He lay unmoving, allowing the man to hit him three times without movement. The pain was enough to cause him shudders, webbing out from his legs to tingle in his spine. Enough strikes from such a weighty cane and in the right places would surely be enough to kill him.

Schulze’s face was beginning to grow red again, the mottled rash rising from his throat. “He was my _prize_, outlaw. He was _my Omega._”

Vero bit his bottom lip, weighing his options before he let the most ill-advised one spill from his mouth. “If he was yours, then why not mark him?”

The cane hit him again, this time over his back, pulling a shout from his lungs. “_You cannot possibly understand._” After a short few breaths, he gave a sigh. “You are much too stupid to comprehend my motives. It is…it is the guise of his innocence, Alpha. You couldn’t realize the worth of a boy’s purity.”

_Purity?_ Vero scoffed his incredulity even as his heart continued to ache and tears slipped from his eyes. “_You’re sick_.”

Schulze laughed, the sound malicious, humming into Vero’s heart with an ominous rumble. “Rich from a disgusting ingrate like yourself. You’ve made a mess of your life and here you are in the presence of greatness and you dare hope to understand it?”

“Anyone with half a brain could see how much he hated you. How much he wished you were dead. You didn’t love him…he wasn’t yours.”

“I _bought_ him.”

Vero felt a humorless smile pass over his lips. The wealthy certainly did have an odd way about them. After having sought after such status for such a terribly long time, Vero couldn’t help but now understand after all these years that perhaps immense riches were wont to make a man…well…insane. Imagine, he thought, thinking that money could buy a man and truly own him. Money couldn’t own a man…nor a man’s spirit.

“You’re a waste of an Alpha,” Schulze told him, spitting on him before he gave him a few sound kicks to his chest and stomach. “I thought perhaps that I might let my men take care of you. But I’m angered enough that I think I’ll do it myself. How should you like it? The same way the little whore went? No…no…you’re of a hardier constitution. You might actually survive.”

Vero hadn’t the strength to protest. His limbs were far too useless with his grief and he couldn’t fathom finding the fortitude to fight his fate. There was nothing for him now. Harchem and the boys would hardly consider it a loss. It wasn’t as though they were particularly fond of him, after all. They might have played like it but when it came down to it, they weren’t all that attached to the dumb Alpha who hadn’t even known how to read or write before a few years ago. The only people he’d ever missed had been dead and the only boy he’d ever loved was dead now too. He felt more tears tickle over the bridge of his nose. There was no pain that could compare to the ache in his heart and death did not frighten him.

“I think I might simply beat you,” he mused. “Lord, I wish I did not have to but by what you’ve done, I cannot think of another way to rightly punish you.”

“_Just do it…_” Vero growled, sick of all the man’s chatter and his stupid accent. “If you want to kill a man, just get it done already. More so if it’s me.”

“Impatient wretch,” Schulze spat.

“Just shoot me, you son of a bitch.” Frustration began to well up in his chest and he pulled at his bindings which held his arms behind his body. With enough _Alpha_ strength, he thought he could break them but he was far too grieved to muster it. He watched the countryside slow outside as the train made a sweeping turn and narrowed his eyes at an odd sight.

A horse. A dapple. He could see the proud nose as she galloped next to the car and then her eyes and the whole of her face. Gaining ground slowly, he watched her through Schulze’s stocky legs as he fumbled with the cane he wished to beat Vero with. She was a beautiful horse and fast to boot, her breaths working in hard blows as she pushed herself until he caught the barest glimpse of her rider.

The cane came down but Vero was quicker, rolling himself over the carpet and finding a hard burst of adrenaline that strained in his shoulders, popping the fibers of the rope which bound him until his hands were free, the bits of rope still dangling from them as he struggled to get up. Dodging blows from Schulze’s cane, he lunged up from the floor and caught the man’s weapon, struggling with him until he’d slammed the German against the wallpaper near to the door. Taking a hard knock, the Alphas were grappling on the floor, trading in dominance with hard, malicious grunts and deep, resounding growls. Vero had taken hits but his blood was sizzling.

_Wolf was alive._ Not only was the boy alive but he had come back. _Why? Why risk it? Why not get away while he could?_

Vero couldn’t contemplate the issue. Not when he was locked in this battle. Not when he was desperately trying to find out how he could manage to pull his gun from the holster that was with his other belongings near to Schulze’s desk. He had to get to it before the other Alpha got the upper hand and was able to pull it out first. He had to find a way to survive this—for Wolf. For his Omega who had come to find him and perhaps had even come to save him.

He took a hard punch to the jaw, the stars in his vision disorienting him enough that he lost his hard grip over the man and he took a few more hits, falling to the carpet in a writhing mess while Schulze struggled away. Pain was radiating out from his nose, deep red blood coming into his blurred vision and staining the carpet. He could hear shouted German around him and felt a messy thud nearby to him—Wolf jumping from the horse into the car. More German, confusing and sharp. Vero lifted himself up to his knees, his vision clearing enough to see Schulze with the heavy six-shooter from the holster held up in his hand.

He lifted his own hands up to the side, pulling Wolf behind him though at this range, the bullet would likely merely pass through him and drill the boy as well. He panted, blood from his nose dripping from his chin over the front of him and dribbling down to the pool already formed on the rug. There was a pause in which the battered German Alpha merely held the gun, the barrel trembling from the stress of his exertion.

Vero spoke. “If you’d kill us, Alpha, you’d best do it now. You ain’t gonna find no better moment to have us both.”

Schulze’s lips curled in a disturbed little smile as he used his thumb to pull back the hammer until it clicked, the sound not lost to the whirling wind around them.

Vero felt small hands come to his shoulders as Wolf knelt behind him and the press of his chest against the Alpha’s back sent a hard shudder through him. Should he be mortally wounded—so would his Omega. Of course…the waiting was the hardest part and a mere second could feel as though it were minutes…but there was no shot. There was an _explosion._

The force of it pushed Vero back, throwing him toward the other end of the car as the wall was blown out near to where Schulze stood and as the outlaw turned and gathered up Wolf in his arms to protect him, he looked back to find the German still conscious but dazed, having been thrown hard against the wallpaper, slumped and bleeding beneath the massive portrait of the boy he’d thought to be dead. The painting of Wolf stared out with wicked green eyes to the gaping hole that was the side of the car and the brakes of the train squealed through the air. Slowly but surely, the train came to a rolling stop but before it fully had, Vero watched as the woman Alpha who had brought him to Schulze casually pulled herself through the destruction of the explosion, her expression set and determined.

“_Wilhelm Schulze_,” she barked in her _Alpha_ voice, sauntering her way over to him with her hand on the butt of her gun. Her partner, the tall and masculine Beta named Jack hopped his way into the car as well, his own guns in his hands as he pressed his back against the remaining wall to cover the opening for guards. “You _slimy sack of shit._”

The Alpha on the floor managed just barely to look up at her, blood trickling from his hair into his face, Vero’s gun a few feet from his open palm.

“Now forgive me, Alpha…but when I do something for a man and I’m promised to be paid…I _expect_ to get paid what I was promised. I did my best for you, Mr. Schulze. And you did not pay me. You hired me to _find a man and maybe even kill him._” She snickered a bit but it was without humor. “How do you think you might fare should you hire a _mercenary_ and not pay her?” She stepped over him, reaching her arms to the heavy frame of Wolf’s portrait, lifting it to remove it from the wall before she set it aside to reveal a small metal door worked into the wallpaper. _A safe._ Her fingers came to the seam of it and she gritted her teeth as she summoned her energy and tore it straight from its seat within the wall, pulling the whole thing out before she dropped it to the floor and against used her _Alpha_ strength to stomp off the lock. “Might you keep something of value in here, little Alpha?” she mocked as she opened the loose door and pulled out stacks of paper money and bonds. “Oh, only just a little for you, perhaps.” She chuckled as she inspected it, taking a few banded bundles and tossing them over to Vero. As she tucked the rest in her satchel, she took a few steps to Vero’s gun and leaned over, picking it up and looking at it thoughtfully before she raised her eyes again.

“Boy,” she said lightly. “Come here.”

Wolf peered down at Vero as he stood on weak legs, his scent frightened and confused. Vero caught his hand and squeezed it, nodding for him to go and he did, shuffling to her until he was close enough that she could place the gun in his small hands.

She took his little chin in her fingers and she caught his eyes, gesturing to Schulze. “Boy…you _kill_ that Alpha.” She pointed to Vero then, allowing Wolf’s eyes to follow her finger. “And you _marry_ that one. You understand me? Well. Maybe you don’t.” She left them then, whistling for her horse, the Beta pausing before he exited the now-stopped rail car to nod once to Vero—the sign that it was over for them. That there would be nothing more that could lead them back to the chase.

A breath escaped him as he heard the hooves of their horses fade into the distance and he realized suddenly that he had been holding it. Wolf was staring at the six-shooter in his hands, trembling hard while he held it. Still shaking, he lifted it up, the barrel pointed toward Schulze’s face.

“Wolf…” the man mumbled, looking up to catch the boy’s eyes. “…_Bitte._”

His pink tongue darted out from between his lips to wet them before he made his reply. “_Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Po._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's going to be another chapter today. :3 Sometime after I wake up. Happy New Year. Welcome to the New Roaring 20s.


	12. Chapter 12

It was over. It was all over. Wolf looked back over his shoulder at the Alpha who rode behind him, the man keeping a sharp eye out over the landscape as they rode on together. The sun was casting long shadows over the prairie hills and warming Wolf’s flesh. There had been no time for comfort and though Wolf hardly ever sought such a thing, he was yearning for closeness now. Still, he had to bring Johanna back. He wanted to make certain that his benefactors knew just how grateful he was for their generosity and he wanted to know that the gray dapple was back where she belonged. She had been kind to him and steadfast when he needed her, unafraid of the rumbling train and fearless in the face of all else.

If Johanna could do it—so could he. His fingers trailed up to the bondmark on the swoop of his shoulder and he touched it, really knowing it for the first time. He was finally bound to an Alpha…and it was this one—Vero—whose scent teased him and taunted him. He was a handsome man though no doubt very rough around the edges. Life would be difficult but it would be worth it.

Wolf let himself have a secret smile. This Alpha was a good man. The future was a mystery, it was wide open. That he could not even speak to his Alpha beyond the most basic of needs was nothing to him. They were mates—what else could be known? It was not as though he thought he was to be happy all of the time…no…it was not that. He knew that everything would be hard, that everything would require much work. But he didn’t care about silk sheets or fine clothes. He cared about loving touches and soft kisses. He cared about freedom…but _with_ someone. He cared that he would no longer be lonely the way he had been lonely in the bed of an Alpha who had hurt him.

The scent of the wild prairie dusted up around him with the wind and the steel and iron tinge of the train left his mind. The memory of soot and ash and blood was behind him—for good. He vowed that day that he would never step foot upon a train again. He had seldom ridden horses but the feel of a huge, powerful engine of flesh between his legs was only natural now and he liked the way his body swayed in the saddle. Happiness seemed to come in waves over him along with a seeping sense that there was nothing more on earth that life could give him.

_A pup, perhaps._ He glanced back again to Vero and wondered if he would ever have a home. A true home. One in which he could find peace and settle down. He rode toward the east while the sun rose and when he saw the rise of the German farmer’s small windmill, he felt Johanna’s pace pick up beneath him, no doubt eager to find herself some nourishment in a familiar place. The farmer, working in his field, stood straight at the sound of hoofbeats and threw down his tools at the sight of him, running at full tilt toward him.

“Little Omega!” he cried when he was close, halting Johanna easily and reaching up to grasp at Wolf’s hand. “Little Omega, what joy I have in seeing you! Please, spare your leg, ride to the house and we will aid you. And this…this is your Alpha?”

“Vero,” he replied with a warm smile, gazing at the man who looked between them with a slight confusion. “Have pity, he speaks only English and I only German.” 

His cheeks grew pink as the farmer laughed heartily. “An imperfect pair, I see. Charming, no doubt. You are both hurt, you need rest. Come. Come and eat and sit. Both of you. Perhaps you have been the answer to our prayers.” He led the horse toward the house, his happy Beta scent clear in the light breeze that wafted it to Wolf’s nose. “You have brought back your life and our Johanna and even your Alpha. Tell me, what are your plans, little one?”

“I know not what we will do. I cannot be ransomed to a man who is dead…”

“Wilhelm Schulze? Dead?”

“I shot him myself.” He made the statement easily and without any pang of regret. He had thought perhaps that when the time would come for him to finally kill the man who had destroyed him, he would feel something. With all the power in his hands, he had felt not a shred of sympathy and the killing…well, that had filled him with nothing but cold satisfaction. He had prepared for fear. He had prepared for regret. He had none. What he did have, however, was Vero.

“You are the bravest Omega I have ever met. Tell me, boy. What is your name?”

“Voigt. Wolfgang Voigt.”

“Wolfgang. I am Otto Zeigler…my wife is Mila. If you’ve no plans then please consider our suggestion. We have prayed that we would find help for our farm. There is no need to answer now. You and your Alpha should speak with each other…but if you are wayward then will you please consider us? We are barren…we can have no children and our farm is abundant. With extra hands…especially that of an Alpha…” He cast a smile to Vero as the man could not understand him save the word “Alpha,” and then implored Wolf with kind eyes. “You two are welcome. For as long as you like.”

With his words still muddling around in his head, Wolf listens to him speaking over his shoulder to Vero, perhaps telling him the same thing, smiling with his scent still content as the Alpha replied in his low and rolling Alpha tones. When they were to the house, Wolf accepted assistance in walking up the steps and nodded to Mila as he was led inside and to the bed. Laid down, he was fussed over by the motherly Beta who examined all of his bandaged wounds again and then took to bathing him with a cloth.

She hushed him when he tried to speak and laid a gentle little kiss over his forehead as if he were a small child. “Oh little one, I cannot tell you how I thought you’d left us for good. I spent tears on you, brave little Wolf. And here you are and you’ve brought your Alpha…rescued him.”

He smiled at her, his lip in his teeth.

Mila leaned over, in her eyes conspiracy. “He is a handsome man.”

“Very handsome,” he agreed softly.

“But he is not German. He cannot speak with you? A shame. Should you stay here with us for a time, perhaps we can help him…and you.”

To speak with him…to know him. It was surely what Wolf wished for. He moved his eyes to where Vero sat at the dining table, treating his own wounds and speaking to Otto while passing glances to Wolf as if he could not drink enough of him in. There was an itch in the both of them…to find comfort in each other.

Mila seemed to understand. “Well, if you cannot speak to him then all there is left for you is touch. He should not be kept from you. I will take Otto and we will tend to Johanna and the crops. You will stay and rest. _Rest_. You understand?”

“I understand,” he chuckled. When the two had retreated and he was left with naught but Vero, he watched the man loom over him, removing his clothes save for his trousers. Revealed over his body were the deepening bruises that had come from his struggle with Schulze and around his nose was a dark shadow that came from its apparent brokenness. An odd guilt seemed to overtake him and he wished to tell Vero that he was sorry, as bizarre as that seemed.

Instead, he held up his hands, beckoning him to come down to him and he was not disappointed when the Alpha came into the circle of his arms and allowed himself to be held, burying his face into the Omega’s neck to scent him. Without shame, Vero allowed himself to be held, his dark blonde hair petted over and over by a small German Omega who once thought he might kill him for the sake of his freedom. He couldn’t even imagine the urge to do so now as he tightened his hold on the Alpha and sought his scent, rubbing his sweetness over the man’s skin until their scents were perfectly mingled and everything was right in the world again.

_I am not afraid of the future. I am not afraid of what is to become of me._

“Vero…” he murmured against the man’s hair, laying kisses over his head.

“_Mmm, Wolf…_” he replied, nibbling lovingly over his throat and very, _very_ gently over his healing bondmark.

To finally find himself in a bed again and with this man—Wolf was overcome with his emotions and when Vero flopped over to the side, he turned to face him, forgetting all the soreness in his body as he met those expressive eyes and studied his handsome face and lightly bearded jawline. He would need a shave soon though Wolf thought it was charming the way it was as he lifted his hand and swiped over the course hairs with his thumb. To think he would become so enamored of an American…of an _outlaw_. He had never been charmed by men who had sought to ransom him before but this one…well he was certainly different. There was something about him that was unexplainable and defied all attempts to do so. He was baffling and wonderful in all the rugged ways that a Western wild man could have been.

He whispered before he moved his head forward, breathing the word over Vero’s lips.

“_Keep._”

The man replied with a grin before accepting the gentle and intimate kiss that Wolf offered him. “_Kept._”

They could share no more before they were lost to sleep and they were not awoken again until the scent of supper tempted them to wakefulness, snuggled and warm in each others’ arms. It was work to pry their sore bodies from the bed but they managed to make it around the table and they each thanked Otto and Mila for their graciousness. Still, Wolf was uncertain.

“It is perhaps best if we did not cause you trouble.”

Otto and Mila both scoffed at him and Otto replied. “We have prayed for the Lord’s help for years and years and we are not so ignorant as to believe that it would come in a form most convenient to us. Wolf, you are welcome to stay with us. If you cannot stay for a longer time then just stay until you are healed and you and your mate can speak to each other properly. It is fate that you have been brought to us—you cannot deny your luck, can you?”

“No…” He could not. If he had not met the couple when he had…he would not have his mate with him. Vero would have been dead. “I do need to repay you…”

“Then humor us and let us help you more. The work around a farm is much more laborious than that which you have done before but it is nothing you cannot do and do well no doubt. Please, Wolf. You and your mate belong here. Even if for a short while.”

He thought for a few moments. “Yes…I think you’re right…if only for a time. What does the Alpha say about it?” He looked up to Vero and at Otto’s English to him, he nodded, offering a gentle smile even as his scent betray his similar uncertainty.

Mila tapped her fingernail to the top of the table in a nervous gesture. “He does not know if there are still outlaws who might wish to find him. If there are, they will perhaps be dangerous. But you will be well-hidden on this farm, Wolf. We will not allow anyone to harm you.”

“There is no one who would pay to have me…so there is no reason to take me,” he replied, reaching out to Vero over the short expanse of table and heartened when his hand was taken and squeezed. Rough and hard, the Alpha certainly was soft to him. “I…I had no thoughts before save those of finding a way to escape…but now…I have no thoughts but thoughts of what I might do with myself now. What sort of future I can make…”

“It seems your Alpha is just as wayward as you are. In an unforgiving land there is much goodness to be found, little one. We hope that you might find your way and that it may be with our help. As children of the _Vaterland_, we must all find ways to aid when we are in need. Your Alpha is in agreement. There is room upstairs in the attic for the two of you and we will make certain on the morrow that the roof is well cared-for and bolstered to keep the heat inside. Otto is very good with his hands and can make you a bed well enough as he has made ours.”

“How can I ever thank you enough?”

“Sweetest Omega,” she reached out to touch his face and offered no more than that. He would have to be content with this. For all those who would do him wrong, there was this one woman and her husband who might do right by him…and it was this that made him wary. How could there be so much good in two people and so much evil in so many others? To offer him a horse…to offer him a home…to offer him so much of themselves after having known him for so short a time. How trusting they must be.

_Or how transparent I must be…_ That what had happened to him might have been readily known by any who looked upon him had not occurred to him before but it did now and he stared then at his mate, wondering just how much the man might know of him…of what he had experienced. Vero must have known how defiled he was…he must not have cared.

That was at least that.

Soon, they would know more of each other. He would know just how bad Vero had been as an outlaw and Vero would know how many disturbing acts Wolf had been forced to perform in Schulze’s bedroom. It would take time, of course, but Wolf would finally learn more English and perhaps the Alpha would pick up some German…and there would be revelations that perhaps Wolf wished would remain in darkness.

Still, despite all of his misgivings, he was was happy…excited even. He had not thought of having a mate…of _wanting_ a mate. But here he was and Vero was everything he could ever dream of. Outlaw or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double Update today--Happy New Year!


	13. Chapter 13

Vero had taken to German fairly well though Mila had been speaking English with Wolf more and more as time went by. By the time a year had passed, Wolf was fairly proficient and Vero had quite a bit of German under his belt—though by no means did he consider himself fully capable in it. He’d only just learned how to read and write English a few years back—a whole different language was no doubt beyond him at his age, he thought.

A year. A whole year. He thought of the slow and steady ways they had gotten to know each other through touch and voice and odd German and English melded conversations. He was still beautiful—still ethereal almost with green eyes that were wicked and knowing. Vero had held him as he wept and confessed to sins which were not sins at all…at least not on his part. More and more as Wolf bared his past, Vero was sorry that Schulze had escaped this world via gunshot rather than by having been flayed alive.

Wolf’s tears were never long-lived and most instances ended with a stony resolve. He was a strong Omega though he realized that he no longer had to be strong all the time. He could break every so often. He could lay with Vero in their bed that Otto had made them in the attic and let his tears soak into the bedclothes. Vulnerability was new for him and sometimes unwelcome as he hid much of his pain from everyone, choosing to hide his ruddy cheeks and not speak of his nightmares. Still, Vero knew. Wordlessly, he comforted. Some things simply needed no language to be spoken.

A few miles away from the farm was a relatively small ranch which had become in many ways a settlement in itself, boasting a post office and a train station along with several tenant farmers who worked the land surrounding it and paid rent to the ranch owner, a Mrs. Callahan. Mila and Otto frequently came to sell feed to the Alpha Callahan, finding her fair and professional in her dealings. She was not at all bigoted toward men and women who had emigrated from Europe to take part in the great movements into the west and as such, the German couple sang her praises. Vero, however, she was wary of.

He hefted sacks of feed from Otto’s cart, walking them carefully to the pile, glad to have this work and the stability it afforded him. His eyes instinctively kept a close watch over Wolf who had waddled, heavily pregnant, to the butcher whose stand was nearby, seeking to procure some cuts for a meal or two. Even rounded and fat with pup, Wolf was dashing and uniquely beautiful. The only Omega for miles, he was regarded with curiosity and appreciation no matter where he went, leaving Vero with a sense of both pride and nervousness.

Coming away from the stand with meat wrapped in paper, Wolf placed it in the cart and then watched Vero finish with his work, coming to him and seeking even the littlest bit of affection—a very welcome symptom of expecting, Vero had found. He was drastically more willing to accept small gestures and touches, not to mention his initiation of intimate morning sex nearly every day… Pregnancy had been an incredible boon, if Vero could admit. He had never felt closer. He had never felt so loved. Of course he touched the boy’s cheek and neck, nuzzling his dark hair before he scented him, doing so without even bothering to hide his actions from those who would think him rude.

“You are a bold Alpha,” Wolf told him in his heavily-accented English, sounding out each word with care.

“Mmm, and you are my sweet Omega.” He had taken to keeping his voice even and clear, ridding himself of most of his mumbling. “I love you, little Wolf.”

“I know. I cannot believe, sometimes.”

Vero passed the backs of his knuckles over the clearly-visible bondmark on the boy’s neck. “You can’t?”

“Is strange. But you are best for me.”

A sharp Alpha tone struck Vero from nearby, snapping him from his attentions toward his mate.

“_Vero?!_”

His body stiffened and his arm came about Wolf’s body as he pulled the boy closer and his eyes searched for the man who’d called to him, finding him in the form of Greg Deerly—one of Harchem’s men…just as he had been.

“Vero…” he marveled, his eyes wide and disbelieving as he made his approach. “We’d thought you dead…” When he was nearer, he examined Wolf and his brows knitted hard. “We’d thought you…died…with…_is that…?_”

Vero put out his hand in a placating gesture. “Deerly…I’d rather he think it.”

“I’m sure you would. That’s _him_, isn’t it? You sneaky bastard…made off with him, didn’t ya? Killed the old man and made off with the goods…heh. I guess if the old man died, there wasn’t nobody who’d pay for ‘im so you thought what’s the harm, eh? Harchem was mighty mad at ye for how bad ye’d fucked it up. Might actually give me a bit of a _commendation_ should I bring him your head.”

His heart burned. Thank god Otto and Mila had stayed at the farm this morning. Thank god they wouldn’t have to witness bloodshed. But then…everyone else about here would… Vero peered about back and forth to those who were still about their business, unknowing of the events about to unfold. His voice was low. “Deerly, if you draw that gun, you’ll have to shoot us both.”

“Why?” he chuckled. “I’ll shoot you, take him, and toss your pup in the river when he shits it out the little _sprog_.”

Wolf growled hard, his word like a hiss. “I will gut you, Alpha. I will tan your own hide with your brain and wear your flesh as a pelt.”

“A feisty little bitch, isn’t he?” Deerly grinned.

“If you think I was the one who murdered the baron, you’d be wrong,” Vero replied, his heart beating hard in his chest. He’d worn just one of his guns which hung on his hip as a heavy reminder of his past. Wolf was near enough that his little hand could have taken it from the holster and, frankly, Vero was surprised that the little one had not yet shot the Alpha who threatened them. Perhaps he was getting a bit more docile in his state.

“You know, once Harchem finds out how badly you’ve betrayed 'im, he won’t rest until you’re dead. You and your little pup shitter. And if Harchem don’t find yah, then the Marshal will. Maybe I kill you and turn in your bounty. That’d be a nice change for me. Cleanin’ up some town.”

Vero could smell the distress in Wolf’s scent and it wafted through the air, musty and rotten. The boy’s fingers were tight in Vero’s shirt, his anger potent and his green eyes filled with a glint of malice. There was only so far the boy could be pushed.

Another Alpha’s voice cascaded to the fore. Feminine yet still teeming with the hard Alpha edge that warned unsuspecting hearts with its air of authority. _Callahan._ “Gentlemen…” Her long blonde hair was piled atop her head to keep it from falling into her face as she worked and the sleeves of her shirt were rolled up to her elbows, her hands dusty and her boots muddy. She swayed herself over to them with purposeful steps, putting herself somewhat between them while she stared down her nose at Deerly. “I seem to smell that our little Wolf is upset. Pray tell what might have got him that way?”

Deerly cleared his throat, his hands coming to his hips. “Well, Alpha, I think I’ve identified a man with a bounty on 'is head here and I was aimin’ to take 'im in.”

“Do you have a copy of the bounty or a poster that might have 'is face on it?” Callahan asked, shifting her stance without ever taking her hard ice blue eyes off of him.

“Well…no…”

“Then how do I believe you? And by the by…don’t I know you? Haven’t I seen you somewhere?”

His brows tucked toward the center of his face and he peered up at her with a fair amount of chagrin. “I don’t…I don’t see how you could have…”

“Maybe you’ve not been so good yourself, Alpha. Maybe you’ve got a bounty on your own head. Runnin’ around with those unsavory types might get you one o’ those. I’ve known Vero and Wolf here for just about a year and they’ve been the most unassuming of gents…can’t imagine they might have had anything but pups on their minds for a time now.”

“Alpha—”

“Why don’t you pack up some o’ that ego you’ve been carryin’ around and you get the hell off my property? How’s about that?”

Deerly drew up, attempting to appear bigger than he was. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Unless you’d like the Marshal to sort this all out. Or maybe a _real_ bounty hunter. I seem to know a pair who might be interested in a few more dollars.”

A shadow of fear passed over Deerly’s face at the mention of real bounty hunters and he made a soft sound of dismissal before he took his leave, hurrying his way over to his horse and mounting. He rode off toward the East and the three of them watched him go before Callahan turned around toward the both of them.

“I won’t pretend like I don’t know there are a few good men around here with shaky pasts. I’d hate for anyone to hold those pasts against you when you’ve got such a promisin’ future.” She reached out to Wolf and the boy let her nick him under the chin with her thumb and forefinger, the action calming him enough to even out his scent. “You two stay out of trouble and we’ll try to make certain that trouble don’t find you. If Otto and Mila like you two well…then I like you two just the same.”

Vero nodded, humbled. “Thank you very much, Alpha. We’ll not forget it.”

“Go on, Alpha. Git this little Oma-to-be out of the sun. It ain’t good for the pup.”

“Yes, Alpha.” With trembling hands, he lifted Wolf up into the cart and carefully drove them back to the farm, helping him from his seat and back into the house where he waddled to the wide wooden counter top to prepare the meat he’d picked up from the butcher. Vero took his hat off, holding to his stomach while he watched the little one go about his tasks. “Wolf?”

The boy turned, his eyes expectant. “Vero?”

“I’m sorry…about…all that.”

“You have no need to be sorry,” he dismissed casually, as though nothing in the world could have bothered him. “Is bad men who should be sorry.”

“…you know I was a bad man.”

“You are good man now. This is what matters.”

Vero smiled at his pronunciations which were often, to outsiders, nearly unintelligible. _Zis is vat matders._ He moved to the counter where he put the money he’d gotten from selling the feed and then turned to his mate. “You’re too kind to me.”

“Will you always say this? I am not kind Omega. I am mean. Rrrr!” He growled comically, bearing his teeth before he laughed at himself. “I will chase your pup with wooden spoon.”

“A monster, hmm?” Vero smiled. “And if Harchem sends his men after us?”

Wolf’s expression was still playful but his words dry and flat, every ounce of them filled with a rigid determination that chilled Vero’s blood. “_I will kill them, Alpha. I will kill them and everyone they have ever loved._”

The outlaw raised his hand and gently touched his fingers to Wolf’s cheek and jaw, tickling over the soft flesh there before he leaned forward and brushed his lips over his mate’s. He caught the fresh scent of contented sweetness and felt the warm stirring in his guts that came from the sprigs of new arousal he could detect in his husband’s aroma. Deepening his kiss, he slipped his tongue between the boy’s lips and lightly teased him before he whispered against his open mouth. “_Upstairs, little one?_”

“_You will love me, Alpha?_”

“_Until the end, little Wolf._” With that, he hefted the fat little Omega into his arms and carried him up the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot what day it was yesterday. That seems to happen to me a lot when I'm super busy and my DnD days get all messed up.


	14. Chapter 14

He was behind her, his hips jerking back and forth while she stifled her moans into her own hands. The hay beneath them was soft and the loft in the barn was warm. Small brown bats huddled above them among the rafters, unbothered by their quiet pleasured sounds. Izz could hardly stand it, this pleasure that build upon itself so subtly until she was rolling through wracking climaxes that didn’t seem to stop at just one. How any woman could deny herself this—she couldn’t know. The warmth wasn’t particularly stifling but she was sweating all the same, feeling it trickle from her hair and over her back while he drove into her, unyielding and powerful.

“_Jack…_” she whispered and he leaned forward to reach around her and cup at her breast while he kept up his thrusts. “_Please…Jack…uhnn…_”

“Mmm, that’s my girl,” he cooed into her ear. “That’s my good Alpha girl.”

Her body tightened around him, clutching and begging for him without any words. God she loved to get pounded by this boy. She supposed that it _was_ a little odd but with how long they’d been together, she hadn’t really thought all that much about it until it was thrown in her face everyday.

His mother didn’t know. As much as she’d wanted to help him and to save his family ranch, she supposed she hadn’t really thought about what it was going to be like to be together with all of his family about. They’d been relatively free out on the open range, fucking and loving and doing as they pleased. Now? They’d been surreptitiously avoiding any and all confrontations or discussions about their relationship and it seemed most of his family was content not to ask.

The money had paid off the debts and then some and not one single marshal or bounty hunter had every come by to wonder if Izz and Jack knew any goddamned thing about it. As far as anyone knew, the money was taken by some train-robbing hooligans whose faces hadn’t ever been seen. The rest of the money was sitting pretty and Jack had been chattin’ about investments and projects they might put it toward as well as improvements to the ranch that might do well for his mama. That was all well and good, Izz thought, but what about _them?_ What about being _free?_

“_Jack, harder…_”

He complied, slapping against her at the angle he knew she loved best and when she peeked over her shoulder at him, she found his little pink tongue sticking out in concentration while sweat shined over his forehead. There was hay in his hair dirt on his face and he was the most handsome man she thought she’d ever seen. She couldn’t keep staring at him when he took to stroking her big Alpha member, sliding his fingers over the length of her with ease. Her feminine drippings were enough to lubricate the motion and she groaned with her pleasure, feeling distinctly overwhelmed.

The animals below them were calm, used to the lewd goings-on above them by now. It was where they always hid. Jack would give her a hungry gaze any time of the day and eventually they would come together and meet behind the barn and move to the loft. Normally they weren’t missed and if they were, they were just havin’ a smoke. They washed in the rain basin before they came inside so they didn’t smell too much like sex and each other but sometimes…sometimes Izz just wished she might just put her stink all over him and not have to hide it anymore. She just wanted everyone to know that Jack was _her man._

“_Mmm, Belle. You’re so hard for me. Look at you, pantin’ and sweatin’ like some bitch in heat._”

She grinned, shooting back at him, “_I’ll be your little bitch, boy. But I’ll make you mine tomorrow._”

“Oh yeah…” he groaned, slamming into her even harder. “Yeah, that’s what I want…” He panted, jerking his hand over her. “_I’m gonna come, Belle. I’m gonna come…_”

She couldn’t respond, the generous, tight strokes from his hand already sending her over the edge. Izz felt her body constrict around him as she heaved through a harsh climax, shuddering as he spilled inside her. A loose groan spilled from her throat and she tried to stifle it but failed, fisting hay in her hands as he finished inside, his weight coming over her back as he went limp from his exertion.

“_That’s my girl…_” he whispered again and Izz felt warmth seep out from around her heart. “_God I do love you, Belle._”

Her smile was wide and a product of the soul. “I love you too, Jack. Now let’s get us cleaned up. I reckon we only got about ten minutes afore your ma be ringin’ the bell for supper.”

“Right…but…maybe we take jus’ one more minute to be lazy.”

“You men and your laziness,” she scoffed, squeezing her body around his softening member until he gave a little masculine “oof” and pulled out of her, sliding from her back to lay back into the hay. She loomed over him. “What are you gon’ tell yer ma when she wants ye to get married?”

“She won’t,” he told her with a small closed-mouth smile.

“She won’t? What god-fearin’ woman like your ma don’t want her good son to get himself a wife?”

He chuckled. “She knows if I get a wife, she’ll have te deal with ‘er. She don’t want no other woman tellin’ her how to run her house.”

Izz grumbled while she wiped herself between her legs and pulled her trousers on. “She ain’t never complained about me.”

“You’re an Alpha,” Jack explained. “And she likes you.”

“Well…I like her.”

“Good, then let’s go to supper and you can stop worryin’ my mama’s gonna make me get some Beta wife.”

She was still a bit grumbly after she’d washed herself in the basin and wandered back toward the house where she could smell his mother’s gravy likely smothered all over one of their many chickens. When she went inside, she found ears of corn stacked high, perfect small dinner rolls baked to perfection, and, as she expected, a chicken roasted and covered with gravy. This was enough to lighten her spirits a little and as the dinner bell was rung and all his brothers and sisters came to the table, Izz took her place right next to Jack and across from his mama.

She was a short Beta and at the first, if Izz hadn’t known any better, she would have thought the woman an Omega. Still, she was often serious though soft for her children, and she kept to herself mostly. She was a hard working woman and her hands had seen much toil, lookin’ more like leather than any other woman’s hands, Izz reckoned. She was a woman who demanded respect in a quiet sort of way and Izz had no problems following her orders—even if she did insist that Izz call her “Mama.” With seven children, it wasn’t no problem at all to add another, she said.

“Evenin’, Jack. Did you get that coop fixed today like you wanted?”

“Belle and I got it done just a while ago,” he offered. It was the truth. Of course, they’d gotten it done before they’d started fooling around in the barn. “I noticed today that the fence on the west end of the pasture is gettin’ a little worn down. There’s somemat that Marble likes on the other side and the leanin’ to get it is startin’ to strain. Belle and I might go fix that tomorrow but we’ll need to ride into town.”

“Alright then,” she replied in her mild voice as she watched her other children come to take their places, the youngest at nine years old and the oldest aside from Jack being Polly who was around twenty. “Luke? Why don’t you say grace here?”

The kids all laced their hands and Izz followed suit politely, listening to the littlest recite what he’d been taught before they all slowly made their way to fixing their plates. Luke, of course, was the chattiest and so he started in immediately.

“Y'all won’t believe what I saw today.”

“And what’s that, dearest?” Mama asked.

“I saw a lizard and it was about _this big_. I was fixin’ to keep it but Anne-Marie said I best leave it where it lives.”

Anne-Marie nodded her head sagely. At thirteen, she was rather convinced she was right about just about everything. “I said it and I meant it. He’s got a little family just like ours and you ought not take him from them. Awful to do that to a poor lizard.”

Mama nodded as well. “Awful to do that to anyone, I suppose. And a lizard is just as much God’s creature as we are. Mustn’t decide fates, Luke. It’s not becoming.”

“Well…if you say so,” he replied easily. He gave a little pause and then frowned. “Well…if we mustn’t decide fates over lizards, then why do people spend so much time decidin’ the fates of…_people?_”

Mama’s smile was small. “I suppose they don’t know no better. But we do.”

“Is that why you don’t tell Polly to get herself a mate like Mrs. Hamms tells her daughter to?”

Polly’s face bore a becoming blush and she shot her brother a frown.

“I’m jus’ wonderin’ why it ain’t ever occurred to y'all that Miss Izz and Polly becomin’ mates jus’ seems like plain ol’ common sense!” He stuffed a roll in his mouth and Izz swallowed hard, glad there was something that might shut him up for a second.

Mama cleared her throat and Jack sat very still, staring down at his plate with his face curiously blank. Izz leaned back in her chair and put her hands in her lap, trying to keep her eyes trained on her own food instead of searching Jack for his emotions like she was wont to do before.

Izz was the first to speak. “Um…well—” She didn’t get far before Mama piped up.

“Luke, I know you’re very young and you ain’t seen a lot of the world yet…but one day you’ll come to know that love ain’t always about common sense. Sometimes it’s…well it’s very confusin’. Sometimes love really knocks us for a loop and makes us love someone who don’t make any sense to be with and…well…you really can’t pick and choose who’s gonna catch your eye.” At the end, her eyes shifted toward Jack and then to Izz before they darted back to her youngest son. “But there ain’t nothin’ wrong with lovin’ who you love…even if it mightn’t be the person who you ought to.”

Jack shot his surprised gaze to his mother, his jaw opening at her words. “Mama…”

“Don’t you act surprised, Jack,” she told him sternly. “I am your mother. Ain’t nothin’ I didn’t know about you from the moment you were a toddlin’ babe. You’ve got a heart that’s open and I well knew it. I told myself that if you ever came home and brought someone with yah, I better make peace because there ain’t nothin’ wrong with a heart that’s got enough love in it to overlook all else.” Her eyes were glimmering with tears. “You’re a good man, Jack, and I’m proud of you. And you, Izz…you’re a decent Alpha and you’ve helped my son and my family more than I can say. I’m happy to have you in our family and I hope to God, you won’t let anything stop you from lovin’ just as much as you can.” She got up, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. “Oh dear…please go on and eat…I’ve got to jus’…collect myself.” She shuffled away from the table then, disappearing out the front door.

There was a hushed silence that fell over the table while they all stared at Jack where he sat, Luke still chewing on his roll.

The boy swallowed. “So…does that mean you and Jack are mates, Miss Izz? Well hell. I didn’t know that.”

Polly hissed at him. “Luke! Don’t you let Mama hear your cussin’. And don’t none o’ you say anythin’ outside this family about Jack and Izz. Last thing we need is someone comin’ 'round here thinkin’ they ought not be together. This is a family thing and let it stay that way, you understand?”

There was a round of enthusiastic nods and a murmur of agreement throughout.

Luke was still frowning. “But how’s they supposed to have pups?”

Polly glared at him. “They ain’t. And they ain’t need any more than us. If you can’t tell there’s too many of us already. Now eat your chicken and enough about all o’ this.”

Izz stood up, sheepish. “Pardon, all, I think I might like to have a word with your Mama…” When Jack put out his hand to her, she merely squeezed it and gave him a meaningful smile before she left him. 

Mama was out on the porch, sitting on the bench Izz had made by hand.

“Mama?”

She was wiping her tears from her cheeks with her cloth napkin. “Yes, Izz?”

“Can I sit with you?”

“Of course, darlin’.” She patted the spot next to her and waited until Izz was settled. “I guess you all thought I didn’t know. Well…I did.”

She grinned. “I guess you did. I’m sure sorry to have made you cry, Mama.”

“Oh you haven’t done a thing, Alpha. It’s just that sometimes when I think about how perfect you all are, I can’t imagine that anyone could ever say t'was wrong to love somebody. There must have been a reason for the good book to say so but I ain’t ever met a good man who didn’t have the humility in 'im to say he changed 'is mind. If God is as good as the minister says he is, then he must be a man willin’ to change 'is mind. That must be why he made my son with a heart like he has…and it must be why he brought my son to you…”

Izz nearly had to wipe her own tear off her cheek. “I sure appreciate that, Mama. I didn’t know how long I could go on without your blessin’.”

She put her hand out and took Izz’s, her hold tight. “You’ve got my blessin’, Alpha. You make my son happy and you’re a good Alpha and that is all that matters to me.”

This time she did have to wipe a tear off her cheek. “Thank you, Mama.”

“No no. Thank _you_, Alpha. For everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter made me tear up when I was writing it. I love you, Mama. :'3
> 
> Like this story? Leave a comment and/or join my [**Discord Server**](https://discord.gg/af7KvbT2AJ)! We love to chat about stories, future projects, characters, and more!
> 
> The plan from here is to finish _A Stone's Throw_ before I start anything new! If you have any questions, let me know.


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